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Dust in our ears, eyes, mouth, nose and everywhere
Video
In late 1914 the New Zealand and Australian forces were diverted from their original destination of England to Egypt. There they combined to form the ANZAC Corps that would eventually fight in the Gallipoli campaign. This film shows an activity that became a routine part of soldiers’ life - the troop inspection.
As well as the blazing Egyptian heat, the ANZAC troops had another menace to contend with – dust. Herbert Hart wrote in his diary “[t]he sand is worked into such fine dust near camp, that it now flies everywhere whenever the troops move over it. We had dust in our ears, eyes, mouth, nose and everywhere, it fell from our puggarees [cloth wrapped around the regulation sun helmets], pouches, pockets, putties [long cloth strips wrapped around the calves] or from all our clothes.”
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Heroes of Gallipoli
Video
Heroes of Gallipoli contains the only known filmed scenes of the Allied involvement in the Gallipoli Campaign. It is an edited version of an earlier film, With the Dardanelles Expedition. This is amateur film, shot under the most trying conditions, yet it provides unique footage of Gallipoli and some of the most vivid frontline images of the First World War.
Heroes of Gallipoli was deliberately edited to tell a story of Australian military achievement. However, the film footage also tells a story of British and New Zealand action that the intertitles never mention.
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Joining the Flotilla, 1914
Video
At the outbreak of war in August 1914, dozens of vessels were hastily converted into troopships to transport military units to their destinations overseas. This film shows newly recruited AIF troops boarding troopships at Woolloomooloo (Sydney, NSW) and Port Melbourne (Melbourne, Vic.) Their ships then joined the flotilla at King George Sound (Albany, WA), the final Australian anchorage for the first convoy of almost 30,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers heading to Egypt.