Charles Bingham was a nineteen-year-old jackaroo from the Australian bush when he enlisted in 1914 and became one of the original ANZACs, an eyewitness to history at the Gallipoli landing.
Drawing on Charles's own wartime diaries, family records, interviews and archival research, CHARLES BINGHAM: AN ANZAC STORY follows him from his early years on the land, through training in Egypt, to the shores of Gallipoli, where he served as a medical orderly and stretcher-bearer, carrying the wounded ashore under fire. His account continues through Lemnos, the return to Egypt, and the mud and horror of the Western Front, before his eventual return home to rebuild a life in Australia.
This is more than one soldier's story. It explores the character and courage of the Australian soldier through Charles's own eyes, and traces the campaign to have the landing site officially renamed Anzac Cove, in honour of the men who fought and died there.
Told with warmth, honesty and meticulous historical detail, this is a moving tribute to an ordinary man who lived through extraordinary times, and a vivid piece of family and national history for anyone interested in the ANZAC legend, Gallipoli or the First World War.