Gallipoli's greatest heroes
The Victoria Cross is the highest award for soldiers who display supreme courage in time of war.
In the eight months of the Gallipoli campaign, nine members of the AIF received the VC.
These vignettes provide a brief inside into the bravery of the men involved.
ALBERT JACKA
Hand-to-hand fighting against all odds
Albert Jacka was born on January 10, 1893, near Winchelsea in Victoria and worked as a labourer with his father, then for the Victorian State Forests Department before enlisting on September 18, 1914, into the 14th Battalion.
LEONARD KEYSOR
He caught grenades like cricket balls and threw them back
An Englishman of Jewish heritage, Leonard Keysor took a circuitous route to Australia before joining the AIF in late August 1914.
WILLIAM SYMONS
Enemy retreated after barricade standoff
William Symons landed at Gallipoli as a sergeant with the AIF’s 7th Battalion on April 25, 1915. He won the Victoria Cross for his “conspicuous bravery” at Lone Pine on the night of August 8-9.
ALFRED SHOUT
Alfred Shout was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on August 8, 1882 and served in the Boer War with the New Zealand Border Horse (where he was wounded twice and Mentioned in Despatches for bravery) before migrating to Australia with his family in 1907.
FREDERICK TUBB
Victorian grazier held the line at all costs
Capt. Frederick Tubb recklessly stood on the parapet of the trench, revolver in hand, shouting words of encouragement to the 10 men under his command as he fired at the approaching Turkish soldiers.
WILLIAM DUNSTAN
Last two standing at Lone Pine defied bullets and bombs
The Turks attacked in darkness before dawn with a deadly barrage of hand-thrown bombs.
ALEXANDER BURTON
Trench bravery against deadly rain of grenades
Even before he was awarded Australia’s highest military honour, Cpl Alexander Stewart Burton had earned a reputation for performing daring acts: detailed and immortalised in the hurried letters his fellow Diggers sent home to sweethearts from the nightmarish shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
JOHN HAMILTON
Cool bravery turned tables in attack
When John Hamilton joined the AIF in September 1914 he was just 18 and working as a butcher in his father’s shop in Oakey Park, a mining settlement outside the NSW town of Lithgow.
HUGO THROSSELL
Light Horseman withstood wave of bombing
Hugo Throssell was born on October 27, 1884, at Northam, the son of George (the second premier of WA) and Annie Throssell.
