.Last man standing
April 25 2002
Lest we forget the last survivor of the Gallipoli campaign, writes Peter Bowers.
To look into the worn, sagging face of Alec Campbell is to marvel at the legion of Anzac Days he has stacked up. Best not to ponder the number of Anzac Days he's got left.
Alec Campbell is 103. He is our last surviving Anzac, and maybe a lot more. Historian Michael McKernan believes Campbell quite possibly is the last survivor of the entire Gallipoli campaign, lumping friend and foe together.
Alec Campbell has lost one eye, is partially blind in the other and has a serious hearing problem. He spends most of his waking hours in a wheelchair and last February moved into a nursing home because his ailing wife Kathleen, 79, could no longer look after him. Alec does not complain much except when his wife is not with him. "Where's Kate?" he asks again and again.
The old soldier stopped marching on Anzac Day six years ago when his body could take no more. Today he will try an easier way. In a wheelchair strapped into a four-wheel drive vehicle, he will take part in the 87th Anzac Day march in his home town of Hobart.
When Alec Campbell dies, his passing will break the last human link with a small, distant conflict that mystically defined, and with each new generation redefines, Australia's national character - how we see ourselves. To those with family ties to long-dead Anzacs, it will be a wrenching, personal loss
Lest we forget the last survivor of the Gallipoli campaign, writes Peter Bowers.
To look into the worn, sagging face of Alec Campbell is to marvel at the legion of Anzac Days he has stacked up. Best not to ponder the number of Anzac Days he's got left.
Alec Campbell is 103. He is our last surviving Anzac, and maybe a lot more. Historian Michael McKernan believes Campbell quite possibly is the last survivor of the entire Gallipoli campaign, lumping friend and foe together.
Alec Campbell has lost one eye, is partially blind in the other and has a serious hearing problem. He spends most of his waking hours in a wheelchair and last February moved into a nursing home because his ailing wife Kathleen, 79, could no longer look after him. Alec does not complain much except when his wife is not with him. "Where's Kate?" he asks again and again.
The old soldier stopped marching on Anzac Day six years ago when his body could take no more. Today he will try an easier way. In a wheelchair strapped into a four-wheel drive vehicle, he will take part in the 87th Anzac Day march in his home town of Hobart.
When Alec Campbell dies, his passing will break the last human link with a small, distant conflict that mystically defined, and with each new generation redefines, Australia's national character - how we see ourselves. To those with family ties to long-dead Anzacs, it will be a wrenching, personal loss
It was only an illusion, of course, but the older the Anzacs got the more enduring they became. Through the 1970s and '80s they seemed to settle into a remarkably long twilight, hitherto reserved for gods.
As recently as 1990, 58 Anzacs, chosen from some 600 veterans, were robust enough to make the physically and emotionally wearing trip back to Gallipoli for the 75th anniversary of the landing.
One of the 58 was Alec Campbell, who discovered that just stepping upon Gallipoli soil could be dangerous, even in peacetime.
Believing he was close to the trench he had briefly occupied he went off by himself to find it, only to crash through a screen of clinging brush into a hole. Declaring he had found his long-lost trench, Alec was dragged free by a not-happy guardian army officer.
The Anzac party was seeing for the first time the Dardanelles side of the peninsula, a vision the Turks had denied them during the ferocious eight-month campaign. For the second time in their lives these Anzacs would leave Gallipoli convinced the task they had been given was impossible.
On their first tour of the battlefield where 7800 of their comrades had died the party discovered to their amazement that nobody could recognise the jutting feature on a sandstone cliff they had named The Sphinx.
The wind coming hard off the sea for 75 years had worn away any likeness. The veterans could take comfort they were wearing comparably better than a sandstone cliff. Not for long.
The closing decade of the 20th century scythed through the Anzacs like machine-gun crossfire. Only three were left and only one was standing.
Then Walter Parker died on January 22, 2000. Two left. Roy Longmore died on June 21, 2001. Alec Campbell was as alone as the symbolic tree on Lone Pine.
The eldest in a family of four boys and a girl, he put up his age from 16 to 18 to join up. The decision was his alone. His father was so angry with him he refused to accompany Alec's mother to Melbourne to farewell his son's ship.
"I must have lied about my age. It was a bit of an adventure at that age - Egypt was a fairy land - but I suppose we had some idea of protecting Australia and England," Alec told journalist Tony Stephens in an interview in 1997, before his memory began to fade until today, when it is all but gone.
Ask him now what he remembers and if you're lucky he mutters a few words, "very scrubby ... mountains .. bullets ... intensive, constant rifle fire." That's it.
When I first interviewed Alec 2 years ago, the mental journey back to Gallipoli was becoming distressful. "It's so long ago . I don't remember," he begged off.
Alec landed on Gallipoli in late November 1915. Everyone was talking evacuation and it was heads down time. No-one wanted to be the last Anzac to die on Gallipoli. The hardened fighting men called the 16-year-old "The Kid" and did their best to protect him.
The savage winter and influenza was the enemy that brought him down. He was discharged from a field hospital on December 19 to join the general evacuation but later contracted mumps and then palsy and was shipped home medically unfit.
In later life, Alec Campbell became a spectacular late developer. He married twice, both times to women named Kathleen, who together gave him nine children, the last born when Alec was 69.
He gained an economics degree at 50, built boats and sailed in six Sydney-Hobart races.
Alec's Campbell clan just keeps growing. He claims, in addition to nine children, 30 grand children, 32 great grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.
Alec still has his moments. He was quite taken by the Minister for Veterans Affairs, Danna Vale, who recently visited the Mary Ogilvy Nursing Home where he lives. "If I didn't know my husband better, I'd say he was flirting with the minister," Kathleen said.
Alec Campbell? Flirting with the minister? At 103? A late developer, indeed.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/24/1019441264585.html
April 25 2002
Lest we forget the last survivor of the Gallipoli campaign, writes Peter Bowers.
To look into the worn, sagging face of Alec Campbell is to marvel at the legion of Anzac Days he has stacked up. Best not to ponder the number of Anzac Days he's got left.
Alec Campbell is 103. He is our last surviving Anzac, and maybe a lot more. Historian Michael McKernan believes Campbell quite possibly is the last survivor of the entire Gallipoli campaign, lumping friend and foe together.
Alec Campbell has lost one eye, is partially blind in the other and has a serious hearing problem. He spends most of his waking hours in a wheelchair and last February moved into a nursing home because his ailing wife Kathleen, 79, could no longer look after him. Alec does not complain much except when his wife is not with him. "Where's Kate?" he asks again and again.
The old soldier stopped marching on Anzac Day six years ago when his body could take no more. Today he will try an easier way. In a wheelchair strapped into a four-wheel drive vehicle, he will take part in the 87th Anzac Day march in his home town of Hobart.
When Alec Campbell dies, his passing will break the last human link with a small, distant conflict that mystically defined, and with each new generation redefines, Australia's national character - how we see ourselves. To those with family ties to long-dead Anzacs, it will be a wrenching, personal loss
Lest we forget the last survivor of the Gallipoli campaign, writes Peter Bowers.
To look into the worn, sagging face of Alec Campbell is to marvel at the legion of Anzac Days he has stacked up. Best not to ponder the number of Anzac Days he's got left.
Alec Campbell is 103. He is our last surviving Anzac, and maybe a lot more. Historian Michael McKernan believes Campbell quite possibly is the last survivor of the entire Gallipoli campaign, lumping friend and foe together.
Alec Campbell has lost one eye, is partially blind in the other and has a serious hearing problem. He spends most of his waking hours in a wheelchair and last February moved into a nursing home because his ailing wife Kathleen, 79, could no longer look after him. Alec does not complain much except when his wife is not with him. "Where's Kate?" he asks again and again.
The old soldier stopped marching on Anzac Day six years ago when his body could take no more. Today he will try an easier way. In a wheelchair strapped into a four-wheel drive vehicle, he will take part in the 87th Anzac Day march in his home town of Hobart.
When Alec Campbell dies, his passing will break the last human link with a small, distant conflict that mystically defined, and with each new generation redefines, Australia's national character - how we see ourselves. To those with family ties to long-dead Anzacs, it will be a wrenching, personal loss
It was only an illusion, of course, but the older the Anzacs got the more enduring they became. Through the 1970s and '80s they seemed to settle into a remarkably long twilight, hitherto reserved for gods.
As recently as 1990, 58 Anzacs, chosen from some 600 veterans, were robust enough to make the physically and emotionally wearing trip back to Gallipoli for the 75th anniversary of the landing.
One of the 58 was Alec Campbell, who discovered that just stepping upon Gallipoli soil could be dangerous, even in peacetime.
Believing he was close to the trench he had briefly occupied he went off by himself to find it, only to crash through a screen of clinging brush into a hole. Declaring he had found his long-lost trench, Alec was dragged free by a not-happy guardian army officer.
The Anzac party was seeing for the first time the Dardanelles side of the peninsula, a vision the Turks had denied them during the ferocious eight-month campaign. For the second time in their lives these Anzacs would leave Gallipoli convinced the task they had been given was impossible.
On their first tour of the battlefield where 7800 of their comrades had died the party discovered to their amazement that nobody could recognise the jutting feature on a sandstone cliff they had named The Sphinx.
The wind coming hard off the sea for 75 years had worn away any likeness. The veterans could take comfort they were wearing comparably better than a sandstone cliff. Not for long.
The closing decade of the 20th century scythed through the Anzacs like machine-gun crossfire. Only three were left and only one was standing.
Then Walter Parker died on January 22, 2000. Two left. Roy Longmore died on June 21, 2001. Alec Campbell was as alone as the symbolic tree on Lone Pine.
The eldest in a family of four boys and a girl, he put up his age from 16 to 18 to join up. The decision was his alone. His father was so angry with him he refused to accompany Alec's mother to Melbourne to farewell his son's ship.
"I must have lied about my age. It was a bit of an adventure at that age - Egypt was a fairy land - but I suppose we had some idea of protecting Australia and England," Alec told journalist Tony Stephens in an interview in 1997, before his memory began to fade until today, when it is all but gone.
Ask him now what he remembers and if you're lucky he mutters a few words, "very scrubby ... mountains .. bullets ... intensive, constant rifle fire." That's it.
When I first interviewed Alec 2 years ago, the mental journey back to Gallipoli was becoming distressful. "It's so long ago . I don't remember," he begged off.
Alec landed on Gallipoli in late November 1915. Everyone was talking evacuation and it was heads down time. No-one wanted to be the last Anzac to die on Gallipoli. The hardened fighting men called the 16-year-old "The Kid" and did their best to protect him.
The savage winter and influenza was the enemy that brought him down. He was discharged from a field hospital on December 19 to join the general evacuation but later contracted mumps and then palsy and was shipped home medically unfit.
In later life, Alec Campbell became a spectacular late developer. He married twice, both times to women named Kathleen, who together gave him nine children, the last born when Alec was 69.
He gained an economics degree at 50, built boats and sailed in six Sydney-Hobart races.
Alec's Campbell clan just keeps growing. He claims, in addition to nine children, 30 grand children, 32 great grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.
Alec still has his moments. He was quite taken by the Minister for Veterans Affairs, Danna Vale, who recently visited the Mary Ogilvy Nursing Home where he lives. "If I didn't know my husband better, I'd say he was flirting with the minister," Kathleen said.
Alec Campbell? Flirting with the minister? At 103? A late developer, indeed.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/24/1019441264585.html
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:24 PM
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