During the winter of November 1915, the Gallipoli Peninsula was hit by heavy rain and a southwest gale. This culminated in a bitter three-day snowstorm that interrupted communication. Trenches were transformed into muddy channels which made living and sleeping conditions even more uncomfortable. Many soldiers – British, ANZACs and Turks – suffered frostbite and lost limbs after amputations. Sergeant George Bollinger wrote, ‘Today has been cold and miserable and tonight snow is falling, a sleet having set in, Hardships have begun’[1].

In this compilation, three veterans describe their experiences of the blizzard and how it affected their living conditions. Walter Cobb of the Wellington Mounted Rifles talks about the difficulty of crawling into his ‘bivvy’ [bivouac, or crude shelter] to sleep after the blizzard had frozen his coat to his backside.

An unidentified veteran describes the blizzard as the coldest the soldiers had felt during the war, and recalls how frostbite led to amputations, claiming soldiers’ limbs and even their lives.

A third veteran, also un-named, remembers that his troop had to spend the night in the snow after moving through muddy ground. One soldier stood with his back to the fire, but never noticed that his pants got singed, and the next day, when he went to wipe away the dry mud, his pants came away too, creating some light relief for his friends.

[1] Quoted in Christopher Pugsley, Gallipoli The New Zealand Story, Auckland, 1984, pp. 337-338.