The last Anzacs

About this book

Nearly 50,000 Australians and about 18,000 New Zealanders went to war on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915. They shared a horror, but their courage and deeds on a battlefield of tragic errors and unimaginable suffering helped build a legend, the legend of the Anzacs. The British lost more men at Gallipoli than did the Anzacs. The Anzacs lost men on the Western Front than they did against the Turks at Gallipoli. Yet rightly or wrongly, Gallipoli is etched deepest into the Australian and New Zealand psyches. By early 1996, probably only 19 original Anzacs, the men of Gallipoli, were left. As this book records in a series of interviews, they were still serving their countries, bearing witness to the mates who died. It also records how their hearts and souls are the heart and soul of the nation and why the legend will live on.