Gallipoli feature in the School Journal

New Zealand children learned about the reality of war as news of the terrible casualties from Gallipoli reached home. In September 1915, the School Journal included a detailed if not entirely accurate account of the New Zealand landings, which emphasised the ferocity, sacrifice, and danger faced by the men. The Journal did not attempt to disguise the costly nature of the landings:

The New Zealanders began to land about eight o’clock. Every boat-load was under shrapnel fire, and there were many casualties before the boats reached the shore. All day long the boats went to and fro between the ships and the shore under this hail. The New Zealanders charged up the hills in the face of heavy fire. One machine gun can fire five hundred bullets a minute; and the broken nature of the country and its vegetation enabled the Turks to conceal these weapons and their riflemen. Snipers, hid in the bushes, not only killed men as they advanced towards them, but waited until the line had swept past, and shot the attackers from behind.

School Journal, Part III, September 1915, p. 230

The feature concluded with General Sir Ian Hamilton’s praise of the Anzac soldiers at Gallipoli:

May I, speaking out of a still heart, be permitted to say how gloriously the Australian and New Zealand contingents have upheld the finest traditions of our race during this struggle still in progress, at first with audacity and dash, since then with sleepless valor and untiring resource. They have already created for their country an imperishable record of military virtue.

School Journal, Part III, September 1915, p. 233

• Read the School Journal account of the Gallipoli landings (pdf)