This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Australian veteran Jack Nicholson speaks to ABC about his experience of landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. 336 Private John Leslie 'Jack' Nicholson (1894-1985) was an electrical engineer from Sydney who served with the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion in the Gallipoli Campaign and on the Western Front. He was wounded in action 3 times. Jack returned to Australia as a Sergeant in 1918. This clip was released in 2015 with the DVA-ABC joint production, Gallipoli: The first day.
Transcript
With the lifeboats that we was to make the landing in, these lifeboats was rowed by the crew, not by the soldiers, because that was a matter of impossibility because we had all our stuff in our packs on our back, then we had an extra 240 rounds of ammunition on us, and some of us had, well, every second one either had a pick or a shovel, but the pick or the shovel was to be dropped when we got above high-tide mark on the beach. That was to be dropped and just carry on with your rifle and what you had aboard. Further than that, we had 8 days iron rations on us, that you can see the way we were loaded that it would be impossible to row a boat. And I tell you, did I tell you? That with our felt hats, they were in our pack because we had to wear the peak cap to make us look like British Tommies. When we jumped overboard, we was chest-high in water and when we got above high-tide mark we had to take our packs off and leave it on the beach and then proceed in the direction of where the rifle fire was coming on because it was still dark, you see, and we had to go by sound and it was uphills and downhills and that, until we eventually caught up with the 9th, 10th, 11th and the 12th battalions, and then after that, when we'd got to our destination of where we was anticipated we would end up, the 2nd Brigade come ashore, but they were lucky, they was allowed to keep their packs on their back. We've never seen their pack since this 'til this day.
