This Christmas we remember the Gallipoli Evacuation from Anzac Cove; the ANZAC evacuation concluded just before Christmas on 20 December 1915.
On 16 December 1915 Australian officer Francis Coen, who later died heroically during heavy fighting at Pozieres in 1916, wrote a diary entry in the form of a letter to his mother:
"I understand I shall be one of the last to withdraw. I do, honestly speaking, sincerely hope so, as I wish to see the last of the affair. Let us hope we shall be successful. Many brave lives have already been sacrificed in this blunder.
It is bitter to leave so many of our dead heroes in their lonely graves in this foreign soil. But necessity is imperative. We can do no good by staying here."
Two days later he wrote this in his diary:
"A feeling of great disappointment and depression has seized me because of this evacuation. It is one of the “downs” of the war and we must accept it."
His mother never saw him again. Like most of the survivors of the Gallipoli Campaign he was re-deployed to the trenches of the Western Front where Australia suffered most of its casualties.