Pte Felix Hargrave (Lilydale), 7^th Battalion: On Anzac Cove. In a letter to his Aunty in Lilydale – ‘I am still in the land of the living. I have been in the thick of it from the first – April 25 – I’ve had close on three months’ hard fighting battles and have been lucky. I have seen some awful sights at the front. We have had to endure some hardships – days and nights digging trenches without sleep or water, only bully and biscuits – we used to boil the biscuits for half an hour before we could eat them.

Where we are fighting is pretty rough country – short, sharp hills and deep gullies, rising to a good height from the sea, with fairly thick scrub about 2ft high – no trees at all. We have a network of trenches dug round the mountainside, and the gullies sandbagged. A German aeroplane came over and dropped bombs on us once or twice without doing much damage. Our aeroplane soon put it to flight and returned the compliment.

We have got the Turks fairly bluffed. We have only to wave our bayonets above the trench and give a few wild, up-country yells and the Turks will fire like mad. They think we are going to charge. They are in mortal dread of the bayonet. In some places our trenches and theirs are only 15 yards apart and we exchange brotherly love per medium of hand grenades and bombs. The Navy gives us good help. The ‘Lizzie’ has done some great work’.