Feb 032016
 

When researching you have to keep rerunning your searches in the various databases that are being added to constantly.

We all know and love Trove which is full of treasures. The site is more than just newspapers with photos, theses and much much more.

My treasure yesterday was from a paper. New papers are being added and kind volunteers are correcting the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) which can be a bit variable depending on font and age of paper.

My George Howard Busby was in the 15th Battalion that landed on Gallipoli on the 25th April.

I found this letter snippet (wish it had all been printed!)

Like a Hailstorm
The following is an extract from a letter received by Mrs G.H. Busby, James Street Kingsholme from her husband (Mr George Busby) who at the time of writing was laid up at Courtaulds Hospital, Coventry: –
 “You will know by now that the Australians got a terrible cutting up. Bullets were flying around like a hailstorm. While we were landing the water was white with shrapnel shell. Whole boatloads of men were blown up and sometimes a boat would come ashore without a man alive in it. There were six killed in the boat I was in – one was sitting next to me. I got three bullets through the pocket of my coat, but they did not touch me. We had to jump out of the boats up to our necks in water and make a bayonet charge. The Turks do not like cold steel. I was in for nine days before I got hit so I had a good run for my money. If it had not been for the battleships we would never have been able to hold the position. It was a great sight to see their shells bursting among the Turks. They would be coming up in close formation , a couple of shots would come over from the ships and what was left of the Turks would be running for their lives.”

STORY OF THE WAR. (1915, August 24). Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld. : 1912 – 1936), p. 4 Edition: SECOND EDITION. Retrieved February 2, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article179903211