Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Private Ralph J. Clark writes a very exhaustive letter to his parents, setting forth his experiences since leaving Egypt. The following extracts may be interesting to our readers. While waiting at Lemnos Harbour, he says the boys were like children looking forward to a picnic. The night before the landing, Private Clark and his mates slept beside their stretchers and first aid outfits, and when morning dawned the guns were booming and the boys had got the real thing at last. While being towed to the beach, Clark expresses his feeling as one of imaginative expectation. On landing there was plenty of work for the ambulance men, who worked all day dressing wounds and getting the injured to the beach. The din was awful caused by the bursting of shells, the roar of the broadsides from the men-o'-war, the crack of rifles, and the agonising cries of the wounded. The ambulance men, in their merciful work, had many narrow escapes. Private Clark was slightly wounded in the thigh. After taking things quietly for a day, he went again into the hills, and became separated from his mates. He wandered into a trench, and dressed wounds there. The lieutenant in charge of a machine gun section asked him to stay handy, as there was plenty of shrapnel flying about, and his services might be needed. He spent the best part of the day with these chaps. When the troops had secured a good footing, and were entrenched, the work of the ambulance men was not so heavy, and they were able to get a little rest.

While at Cape Helles, Private Clark witnessed a bayonet charge by the French Infantry which he described as a magnificent sight. A look round the forts at Cape Helles and Seddul Barr displayed the havoc wrought by the guns of the navy. The fighting at Cape Helles was very fierce, and plenty of work was there for the ambulance men, who were hard put to it in caring for the wounded. There was a spell after this arduous labour; and soon after orders were received to proceed back to their original place. So they embarked on a mine sweeper and travelled by night to their old camp. The Turks made a determined attack to gain back some lost ground, but failed, and lost heavily in the attempt. Private Clark had a peep through a periscope, and the space between our firing line and the Turks was literally strewn with bodies. In connection with this engagement, Private Clark remarks on the coincidence that an armistice to bury their dead should have been allowed on 24th May, the day we in Australia are celebrating Empire Day.