Private Papers of C W Saunders DCM

Microfilm copy of a ts diary (146pp) written during his service as a NCO with the 1st Engineer Company, New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Egypt, December 1914 - April 1915, and at Gallipoli, April - September 1915, describing his training with the New Zealand infantry in the United Kingdom (October 1914 - December 1914), his voyage in the SS DUNERA from Southampton to Alexandria, his landing at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli (25 April 1915) before leading a charge against the Turks (27 April 1915), the construction of trenches, marksmanship skills exhibited by Captain Wallingford, his criticism of an attack made by the Otago Rifles (2 May 1915), his involvement in constructing a roadway for transporting guns, the trenches at Pope's Gully, a temporary armistice for burying the dead, the sinking of the battleship HMS TRIUMPH by a submarine (25 May 1915), his promotion to sergeant (29 May 1915), various Turkish attacks and the prevalence of disease; soon after the Suvla Bay landing in August he was sent back to Egypt and then home to New Zealand, before returning to the UK in October 1916 to work for the Ministry of Munitions.

This reel is a duplicate negative copy

Cataloguer JSK

Catalogue date 2002-04-23