For Brian Gibson, Anzac Day will always hold a special significance.
Brian’s Great Uncle, Sergeant Russell Gibson, served with the 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment on the Gallipoli Peninsular.
Sergeant Gibson was only 21 years old when, at 4:30am on the morning of the 7th of August, he and the rest of the 1st Light Horse Regiment
attacked the dominating Turkish positions at Pope’s Hill and Dead Man’s Ridge. After initial success taking two Turkish trenches, the supporting
attacks at the infamous ‘Nek’ and Quinn’s Post faltered, and the Turkish
machine guns, supported by bombs and grenades, started laying heavy fire on the 1st Australia Light Horse Regiment. In their retreat, further casualties were sustained.
Out of an attacking force of 200, 154 were casualties, with 50 being killed. All bar one officer was wounded in the attack. Sergeant Russell Gibson of Harden-Murrumburrah lost his life in the assault.
Charles Bean, the war historian, described the attack by the 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment as “almost annihilating”.
Since that day, Brian Gibson’s family have continued to honour the memory of Sergeant Russell Gibson. “My father, who was born in 1915, was due to be christened ‘Graham’,” said Brian. “But after my family received news of Russell’s death, they christened my father ‘Russell’ after him.”
Brian’s family continued to honour Sergeant Gibson, with Brian giving one of his son’s the middle name ‘Russell’.
After over a century since his death, the memory of Sergeant Russell
Gibson continues to live on with the Gibson family.
