Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 217
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[Page 217]
108
Its concentration at Mudros Bay had been completed, and the First Australian Division and the New Zealand Brigade were being assembled into forming the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - ANZAC for short - to be commanded by Lieutenant General Birdwood - "Birdie" for short - a name that later gave birth to the conundrum, "Why the hell doesn't he have feathers in his tail like any other bird would?".
In a few days' time I "celebrated" my twenty first birthday: confined to my cabin with a severe influenza attack for a few days. And now I was not only an officer, and officially a gentleman, but I was also, legally, a man.
Up until now, in Australia and Egypt, the troops had been paid regularly every fortnight with golden sovereigns and silver coins. The day before landing on Gallipoli this regular pay was made as usual, despite the fact that there was nothing whatsoever to be bought on the "Derfflinger", as she had no shop or canteen. The money really had no value, and big gambling games started up all over the ship; crown and anchor, two-up, banker, poker and bridge, and sovereigns were being thrown around as if they were farthings, an amazing sight.
Three weeks were spent in the bay practising various methods of landing the troops from the transports (in the lifeboats) which were to come as close inshore as was safe, under cover of a heavy bombardment of known Turkish forts and strongpoints, by units of the Royal and French Navies. Finally the method adopted was that after the troopships had finished their advance to the coast in the dark of early morning, the soldiers would clamber down many rope ladders (in full equipment) to the decks of the destroyers coming alongside, and then get into the lifeboats strung along the other (outer) side, each boat already manned with a sailor and boathook in the bow and a R.N. coxswain in the stern sheets. The destroyers would then dash in as close as they dared towards the beach, cast off the boats and turn sharply away, leaving the boats to be rowed the remaining distance to the shore by the soldiers, under control of the two sailors.