Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"I was just about to have a cup of tea when a sniper got me in the foot, and spoilt the only drink of tea I'd seen for a week. That finished me for a few weeks. I was put on a transport and sent back to Cairo. The snipers are doing more damage than a battalion of men. As we drove the general body of the Turks over the hill, a few of them remained behind in concealment, and these fellows keep on picking off the officers in the trenches. Some of them were on a hill overlooking a spring where we get water. A sergeant was walking up the hill, when a bullet whistled past his ear. He dropped flat, but kept on watching, and presently he saw a bush moving. He put a bullet into it, and was surprised to see the whole bush fall over. He found a Turk there, with bushes tied all around him."

Extract from a letter by Norman Clout published in the Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW), 31 July 1915.

Norman Clout served at the Landing on Anzac Cove and was wounded in action on the 19 May 1915, a gunshot wound to the foot which saw hem evacuated to Alexandria in Egypt. He re-joined his unit on the 25 July 1915 but only lasted for 3 days before he was again evacuated with shell shock and hysteria. He was sent back to Gallipoli on the 3 September 1915 and remained there until the end. He was severely wounded in knee at Pozieres on 25 July 1916 and evacuated to hospital in England and it was over a year before he joined his unit again in October 1917. He was in and out of hospitals for a long time with a crook foot until he had a toe amputated in July 1918. He married in England during January 1919 and returned to Australia with his bride in July 1919.