Life ripped from the pages

Corporal Alfred Love posing in uniform. 137670_01

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By BEN CAMERON and DANNY BUTTLER

“They are getting killed all around me I have escaped so far …“
This Tuesday 27 April, 1915 entry into Alfred Herbert Love’s Gallipoli diary was his last. The remainder of the journal was left untouched.
Never have empty spaces been so haunting.
A scrawled note in the margins of the last page is a heart-wrenching insight into a man who knows he is about to lose everything he holds dear.
“Thinking a lot of wife and child.“ Seven words that hold all the sadness and desperation of a Gallipoli Digger.
The journal, like so many war stories from the time, begins in high spirits as the Coburg man leaves from Melbourne on board HMAT A35 Berrima, just over a month after he’d enlisted on 13 November.
In the first detailed inscription, it becomes clear the diary only exists today because the married former plumber “had (a) lead pencil thrown up from some young lady on leaving”.
Spirits were high at this point, as the then 28-year-old wrote “feeling very well, having good weather”.
Snatches of seaboard life included “still having a good time“ “still plodding along“ and “feeling very well today“.
When his troopship finally drops anchor off Gallipoli, the reality of war starts to hit home for the first time.
“The battle starts tomorrow,” he writes on 24 April. “We can hear the big guns firing this morning … ”
Even when he lands and faces the carnage on the hills and beaches, the solider maintains his belief that the Empire forces will prevail.
“Very heavy losses yesterday for the Australians … we are now ready on the beaches to give them hell. We move right up to the firing line in the morning. The allies are having it pretty rough, but we’ll win.“
Twenty-four hours later, he penned the last chapter of his life.

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