Letters and Stories
Read the stories of the brave men and women who went to war
and their connection to the region.
Billy Sing
Two months after war had been declared, a recruitment officer overlooked the Chinese ancestry of Clermont’s Billy Sing, probably because he was a prize-winning crack shot.
A chap's nerves soon get a bit unstrung after he has been here a bit
The year 1917 is considered the most costly for Anzacs.
Good god Bill, what's happened to my brigade?
The full horror of the sacrifice of the 5th Division at Fromelles sunk in slowly in Australia.
British Army Graveyard Kindermord
The first battle of Ypres began on October 20, 1914, near the end of the Race for the Sea.
No solid mass of bullets
About 200 ships, one of the largest armadas in history, gathered at Mudros Bay.
Monash - A fit leader for the wild men he commanded
In May 1918, Australia’s five divisions were united into a single corps on the Western Front.
We came out after fierce fighting
In the wake of showing the stretched Germans could be stopped at Villers-Bretonneux and driven back at Le Hamel.
Disastrous August offensive
Locked into entrenched stalemates with occasional costly but inconsequential forays, the Gallipoli campaign.
I never expected to get out of this place
‘… there is nothing but shell holes in this part …’
It is not necessary to leave now. Les Australians will hold them.
Fleeing in the face of the German offensive of 1918.
The Nek
Below to the right lay the Australian trenches at The Nek, the narrow strip of flat land about the size of a football field.
