So it begins, April 25, 1915
For eight months they had been training to get up against a front which they could only pass by forcing their way through at all costs.
At dawn on the morning of Sunday 25 April 1915, Australian and New Zealand troops entered their first major engagement of World War 1. They landed on a small Turkish beach that continues to bear a significant event in the history of both countries today.
Every year since the landing both countries have in some way commemorated the actions of those men who landed on the beach we know today as Anzac Cove. This year it will be in a much different way.
Infantrymen from Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia were the first Australians to land in darkness before dawn on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Battalions from Victoria and NSW followed. By this time the Turkish forces had grown, and it was even more difficult to reach land. Once ashore they scrambled up the cliffs surrounding the beach to battle for the ridges. Twenty-three men from the Shire who were in the 5th, 6th and 8th Brigades landed at Gallipoli on 25 April. Three died during the landing.
Lance Corporal Leslie Charles BAILEY, from Torquay, died at the landing on this day. He was a grocer before enlisting when volunteers were first called for eight months earlier. Leslie, with four others, went out to the second ridge to capture guns but never returned. His body was never identified. It was reported that some soldiers had emptied his pockets and taken his id tags which were lost. Leslie is remembered at the Lone Pine Memorial (Panel 24), Gallipoli, Turkey.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT LOCALS IN THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN and. WORK THROUGH OUR ANZAC EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES AS A FAMILY.
https://www.torquayhistory.com/anzac-day/