Galong girl, Emma Murphy, will be following the journey that her great grandfather took when she attends the centenary celebrations of the Gallipoli Landings at Anzac Cove.
Emma and a friend will tour the many sites on the peninsula before laying a wreath at the Dawn Service on behalf of the University of Sydney. Emma will be spending some time in Istanbul before travelling to the Gallipoli peninsula.
The Gallipoli tour will take in the Kabatepe War Museum, ANZAC Cove, Lone Pine, Quinn’s Post, Turkish 57th Regiment Cemetery, the Nek and following the footsteps of her great grandfather Chunuk Bair. Emma and her friend will also visit the ancient city of Troy, located on the other side of the Dardanelles.
Emma, in her second year studying a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics at Sydney University, was selected in a ballot conducted by the Australian Government to attend the ceremony, for those with a family connection to the Gallipoli campaign.
In addition to studying, she has also worked hard to pay her own way to Turkey for the ceremony.
Emma’s other great grandfather, Lieutenant Francis Power Murphy, served at Gallipoli. Lieutenant Murphy enlisted in Melbourne in 1914 in one of the first intakes of soldiers, where, upon enlistment, he was offered a commission as an officer if he gave the Australian Infantry Force (AIF) his car for their use. He subsequently did, and was promoted to Lieutenant in the Divisional Headquarters of the 1st AIF.
Lieutenant Murphy served with the AIF at Gallipoli, before serving as a Major in the Royal Garrison Artillery of the British Army. Lieutenant Murphy survived the war and returned to Australia where he married and settled into farming at Mumbil near Wellington. On his return to Australia, he wrote a detailed account of his experiences in four notebooks, which were only discovered after his death in 1963.
“His recollections are incredibly fascinating as they recount in great detail conversations and interactions with prominent war figures such as General Bridges, the war correspondent Charles Bean and Colonel Ewen Sinclair-Maclagan,” said Emma. “His account of the landing and final briefing to officers is incredibly fascinating. We are expecting the journey to be incredibly emotional, humbling, as well as inspirational.”
