Lost Anzacs

Greg Kerr, long intrigued by the grandfather he never knew, a survivor of Gallipoli, discovers his grandfathers diaries - tantalizingly in shorthand, and singed by fire. In this book he goes in search of this enigmatic soldier-grandfather and unravels a remarkable episode in his family's past. He traces the paths of two orphans from a broken home who enlisted in World War I in different battalions, using different surnames. The result is a graphic account of two profoundly different experiences of war, as seen through the eyes of the brothers. Hedley Kitchen, who took part in the Gallipoli landing and disappeared on the morning of 25 April 1915, and George Kitchin Kerr, the author's grandfather, whose diaries describe the long journey across Turkey and his three and a half years in Turkish prison camps.