WHEN the Australian Expeditionary Force departed for the war in Europe in 1914 it was accompanied by 71 doctors, 161 nurses and 555 medical attendants.
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Most were members of the Australian Army Medical Corps' four field ambulance units.
It was their job to treat the numerous medical conditions of the 20,758 troops in the first AEF and later the wounds, injuries and illnesses of the fighting troops.
Each of the AEF's three infantry brigades had the support of a field ambulance and in the Tasmanian contingent of 938 soldiers and 36 officers there were 29 members of C Section of the 3rd Field Ambulance - two officers and 27 enlisted men.
The term field ambulance was comparatively new at the time and had come into use in 1906 when the British military was reorganised following the Boer War.
It was not a vehicle but a series of mobile field dressing stations and tent hospitals.
Five of the ambulance men in C Section of the first AEF were from Launceston.
Bill Gow, of Trevallyn, was a 23-year-old accountant who enlisted in Devonport, Mac Gunn, 19, was a Launceston clerk, Alf Weymouth, 35, was a draper working in Hobart, Frank Hudson, was a 29-year-old blacksmith from Invermay and Alfred Eccles, 22, was an orchardist who lived in St John Street.
The other members of C Section were from across Tasmania and all had been selected for the field ambulance service because of their previous military training.
They were battlefield stretcher-bearers and field hospital medical staff.
When Turkey joined Germany in the war, the Australian and New Zealand troops were diverted to Egypt, initially to protect the Suez Canal instead of proceeding to England to relieve British soldiers on the battlefields of France and Belgium.
After several months of training near Cairo, the Australian troops were sent to the Dardanelles for an Allied attack on Turkey on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
About 20,000 Allied troops took part on the dawn landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.
Among the first Tasmanian servicemen to die were Launceston stretcher-bearers Alf Eccles and Frank Hudson of the 3rd Field Ambulance.
They were killed on the beach at what would become Anzac Cove as they climbed out of their boat.
They were with Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a West Australian volunteer, who went on to become the most famous member of the ambulance unit.
In the course of retrieving the hundreds of casualties on the first days of the campaign, Kirkpatrick used a donkey to help carry wounded soldiers to the dressing station.
He seemed to have a charmed life until he was killed by a Turkish sniper's bullet on May 19.
More than 300,000 Allied soldiers fought in the Dardanelles campaign and when it ended on December 20, 1915, there had been more than 100,000 casualties.
Many died of illnesses like typhoid that flourished in the poor sanitary conditions of the trenches and battlefield camps.
The Australian Army Medical Corp history lists 21,788 killed, 7970 died of wounds and 74,998 wounded.
The toll on the Australians was 5833 killed, 1985 died of wounds and 19,441 wounded.
The ambulance men weren't spared either with 33 killed, 35 dying of wounds and 225 wounded.
Quite apart from the appalling death toll of the Dardenelles campaign, in the end, the withdrawal was a great loss of prestige for Britain and lengthened the Great War.
For Australia, however, it was the birth of the Anzac spirit and the emergence of our national identity.
Launceston ambulance men Bill Gow, Mac Gunn and Alf Weymouth survived the war and kept diaries of their service.
Bill Gow went on to help found Launceston Legacy, which provided support to the widows and orphans of World War I soldiers.
JULIAN BURGESS, author of the new book William Gow's Anzac Diary: Serving with the 3rd Field Ambulance at Gallipoli (Launceston Legacy, $20)
