I’m alive! Currently in Ceduna. No dramas so far
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Just found out my great grandfather was the last guy out of Gallipoli. Weird.
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Wow, serious?
Tell a bit more.
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Not bad ,…
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Trooper Oliver Murray. Light horse. Doing some research for my daughter for an ANZAC day thing for school. We knew he was one of the last seven guys who volunteered to run up and down the trenches firing while the withdrawal was on. He won the military medal for that. Did a search on him and this article turned up from three years ago about one of the other seven who told a story about trooper Murray. After they had all bagged out they did a head count. He was missing. They looked around for him and the crazy bugger was standing at the top of a trench just looking towards the Turk lines while bombs were going off around him. He didn’t want to leave because of his dead mates apparently.
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Thanks for that, man.
What a world/life. Hard to imagine being in their place.
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Was he an Essendon man as well by any chance HMG?
Make a great story for the club to tell players et al.
Seven would lap it up too …
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Mate, I didn’t meet him as he died a couple of years before I was born but apparently he was the best grandad a kid could want. At Christmas time he would run around with the kids in the backyard with water pistols pretending to be in the war. Always had a big bag of lollies for the kids. He went in to most of the big battles in Europe and lived through all of them. In the end he went AWOL while in England and had run off with a nurse somewhere. He got a dishonerable discharge. I’d say he was jack of the war by then. He took that same nurse home to Australia with him and that was my great grandmother.
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Life of the party to the end, apparently.
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No idea. I’ll ask Mum. I know her dad’s side are Geelong but Oliver was her mum’s dad.
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A couple of nice reads there. Cheers.
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Sounds like his discharge was quite honorable.
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I enjoyed it too. I’m kinda blown away. My mum is blown away too. It’s a bit surreal. We knew he loved the war but hated it too. I guess that story explains a bit about him. He loved being there with his mates and didn’t like leaving them behind.
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He went AWOL 4 times with a few ladies. I think he got shipped to England after Paschendale or one of the big ones in Europe. He was in a few of those. All the ones you hear about. I’ll have to read up again. I’ve got grandfathers who were in big battles in WW2 as well. No idea how they all made it but they did. They were Geelong and Collingwood blokes though. They grew up there so I can forgive them for that. Lol.
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The Essendon thing comes from my Dad’s side. My uncle is a Bombers man. Dad is a Bulldogs supporter. Never understood that and I don’t think he does either.
Or fruitful at least … 
Fruity discharge, lovely.
Maybe we got Jerret as an elaborate strategy to s n a t c h Zerret?
But in all seriousness, I hope he shows something, after his injury and all, he must know this may be his last chance to make an impact.