An article in the New Zealand Medical Journal sums up the Anzac food experience on Gallipoli:

“Far from home, the Anzacs on Gallipoli were supplied by the British Army, and frontline troops were expected to feed themselves on the standard fare of tinned ‘bully-beef’ and biscuit, tea and sugar, jam and condensed milk. However, the heat and the flies made feeding a difficult business. Flies were especially attracted to jam, and as they may have been previously feeding on corpses, cross-infection was almost inevitable.

Lack of clean water and sanitation in the trenches meant that diarrhoea and dysentery were commonplace, for the better-fed officers as well as the troops. The lack of fresh fruit and vegetables, for months on end, caused serious deficiencies in vitamin A and vitamin C, which in turn caused night-blindness and scurvy.

These troops were seriously under-nourished, yet they showed remarkable resilience and bravery under appalling conditions.”(1)

Thousands of men, including Mr Fraser and Mr Davidson, were evacuated from Gallipoli due to disease, worsened by the poor diet and living conditions. Many sick men died in the field, on hospital ships or in hastily constructed field hospitals on neighbouring Greek islands or in Egypt. Those that didn’t were returned to the battlefield when they regained their strength.

(1) Geoffrey W. Rice, “Nutrition and disease: lessons learnt from Gallipoli.” The New Zealand Medical Journal, Vol. 126, No. 1373, 2013.