An Eyewitness Account of Gallipoli: Words and Sketches by Signaller Ellis Silas

Signaller Ellis Silas - of the 16th Battalion of the Australian Imperial force - was the only artist to paint and sketch actual battle scenes showing Australian soldiers in action at Gallipoli during World War I. With his mates, he went ashore at Anzac Cove in April 1915, and for the next month he witnessed the terrible carnage at Gallipoli while performing his duties as a signaller in the thick of the fighting until he was wounded and had to be taken by hospital ship back to Egypt. This book contains the words and sketches by Silas, providing a brilliant and moving eyewitness picture of what it was really like at Gallipoli in 1915. John Laffin includes in his introduction of the book: "Everything he sketched, he had seen personally. He was the Anzac artist."