Charles Bean - Gallipoli

Gallipoli

In September 1914, Bean was appointed official war correspondent with the AIF troops. He was selected by ballot as the official war correspondent, narrowly beating Keith Murdoch. He was given the honorary rank of captain in the AIF and followed closely in the tracks of all the Australian infantry's campaigns. Bean landed at Anzac Cove at 10am on 25 April 1915, a few hours after the first troops had landed and he remained on the peninsula for most of the campaign, enduring the same squalid conditions suffered by the soldiers.

As a war correspondent, Bean's copy was detailed, accurate and also dull — he lacked the populist style of British correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett who produced the first eyewitness report from Gallipoli which was published in Australian newspapers on 8 May. As the sources for reports increased, papers such as The Age and The Argus stopped carrying Bean's copy due to its unappealing style.

In early May, Bean travelled to Cape Helles with the 2nd Infantry Brigade for the Second Battle of Krithia. When the brigade was called to advance late in the afternoon on 8 May, Bean went with them from their reserve position to the starting line, under shrapnel fire the whole way. He was recommended for the Military Cross after retrieving a wounded soldier but was ineligible as his rank was only honorary. Also under fire, he carried a number of messages to the brigade commander, Brigadier General James M'Cay, close behind the front line. He made numerous trips across the battlefield, delivering water and helping to bring in the wounded, including commander of the 6th Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Walter McNicoll.

On the night of 6 August, Bean was struck in the leg by a stray Turkish bullet, while following the column of Brigadier General John Monash's 4th Infantry Brigade at the start of the Battle of Sari Bair. Despite the wound, he refused to be evacuated from the peninsula. He left Gallipoli for good on the night of 17 December, two nights before the final evacuation of Anzac. He would return in 1919 with the Australian Historical Mission.