Trenching at Gallipoli - The Personal Narrative of a Newfoundlander With the Ill-Fated Dardanelles Expedition #245329

Seven weeks after the outbreak of war the Newfoundlanders joined the flotilla containing the first contingent of Canadians. Escorted by cruisers and air scouts they crossed the Atlantic safely and went under canvas in the mud and wet of Salisbury Plain, in October, 1914. To the men from the interior, rain and exposure were nothing new. Hunting deer in the woods and birds in the marshes means just such conditions. The others soon became hardened to it. They had about settled down when they were sent on garrison duty, first to Fort George in the north of Scotland, and then to Edinburgh Castle. Ten months of bayonet-fighting, physical drill, and twenty-mile route marches over Scottish hills molded them into trim, erect, bronzed soldiers.