Bean's Gallipoli

The diaries of Australia's official war correspondent

Probably no person saw more of the Anzacs in battle on Gallipoli than C.E.W. Bean. After sailing with the first convoy, he landed with them on that fateful first morning of 25 April 1915, and remained on Gallipoli until the evacuation, despite being wounded.

No other pressman dared to go ashore at the first landings. Even in the fiercest battles, Bean would sit in the frontline trenches taking notes or making sketches.

In his dugout at night he would record everything he had seen and done in his diary. Its pages flow with powerful descriptions of battle, touching eulogies to the common soldier, and scathing criticisms of senior officers whose mistakes cost men their lives. Bean's photographs, over 80 of which are reproduced here, flesh out his graphic personal account of Gallipoli.

Truthful, harrowing and shocking.'

The Bulletin