Could you survive the experience?
The advanced dressing stations in the gullies and the casualty clearing stations on the beach often came under fire because of their exposed positions.
The wounded were [eventually] evacuated by boat to hospital ships— dubbed ‘black ships’ — waiting offshore. Poor coordination and mismanagement meant that many serious cases were left on the beach too long; once on board they found appalling conditions. “...There were no beds. Some were still on stretchers on which they had been carried down from the hills, some on the paillasses thrown down on the hard decks… None of them had been washed and many were still in their torn and blood-stained uniforms. There were bandages that had not been touched for two or three days – and men who lay in an indescribable mess of blood and filth … Most of them were in great pain, many could get no ease or rest, and all were patched with thirst…”
Ormond Burton, New Zealand Medical Corps, quoted in Gavin McLean, Ian McGibbon & Kynan Gentry, The Penguin Book of New Zealanders at War, 2009
Such was the chaos of transporti g the wounded to overseas hospitals th t some relatively lightly wounded men en ed up in England, while casualties still con alescing found themselves going back to allipoli.
Uniform and equipment
New Zea and infantrymen carried rifle, ammunition, bayonet, water b ttle, entrenching tool, haversack, and a ack containing ov r 30 kil a sofe ra ra ons ater fir w od a i g.
od ratio s ‘ ron rations’, consisted of tinned bully beef, hard biscuits, tea, sugar and beef cubes. Soldiers attached most of this kit to webbing, which they wore over their uniforms. Comfort and practicality soon became more important than maintaining dress regulations and appearance.
“Day by day the sun grew hotter and hotter until it burned down scorchingly hot…The bivvies themselves were swelteringly hot. The ground was almost red hot. There was little stirring of air beneath the great cliffs. Men soon commenced to shed their clothing. Slacks were ripped off at the knees and the vogue of shorts commenced. Coats were flung off and then shirts.… Within six weeks of landing the fashionable costume had become boots, shorts, identity disk, hat and when circumstances permitted a cheerful smile. The whole was topped off by a most glorious coat of sunburn.”
Ormond Burton, The Silent Division, 1935