[Deathwatch] Alec Campbell, last Australian Gallipoli veteran, 103

[Deathwatch Central]

Australia's last known Gallipoli veteran dies at 103 
Thu May 16, 7:42 AM ET 
By MIKE CORDER, Associated Press Writer 

SYDNEY, Australia - The last Australian known to have fought in the
bloody World War I Gallipoli campaign — and possibly the last from any
nation — died Thursday at age 103, his granddaughter said.

Alec Campbell lied about his age to enlist at age 16 and spent a month
fighting in the brutal campaign in Turkey at the end of 1915.

He died Thursday evening at a nursing home on the southern island state
of Tasmania after a short illness. His second wife was at his side.

His death was announced in Australia's Parliament by opposition leader
Simon Crean.

"He was the last of the original Anzacs, and our last living link with
that Anzac tradition," Crean said. Anzacs was the name given to members
of the Australia New Zealand Army Corps which fought in World War I.

Their bravery in battle helped the young Australian nation forge a
confident image for itself.

"We thank him, we honor him, and our condolences go to his family,"
Crean added.

Prime Minister John Howard added his condolences minutes later.

"Not only is he the last Australian Anzac, he is also the last known
person anywhere in the world who served in that extraordinarily tragic
campaign," Howard told Parliament.

"It is very much a moment in this country's history, the severing of
that link and I know that all of us would mark that," he added.

Campbell arrived in Gallipoli in late November 1915, and by Dec. 20 he
was gone in the grand evacuation that ended the campaign.

Australian and New Zealand volunteers formed the backbone of a
200,000-man British-led army that landed at Gallipoli in a failed
attempt to capture Istanbul and knock the German-allied Ottoman Empire
out of the war.

A total of 1 million men fought in the campaign, which Turkish forces
turned into a frustrating nine-month battle of attrition. The Allies
recorded 55,000 killed, 10,000 missing and 21,000 dead of disease,
mainly dysentery. Turkish casualties were estimated at 250,000.

Campbell, nicknamed The Kid at Gallipoli, went from achievement to
achievement after the war. He became a builder, served as a senior
public servant and gained an economics degree in his 50s. He also
sailed in the grueling Sydney-Hobart yacht race six times and fathered
the last of his nine children at age 69.

In recent years, he rarely spoke of his time in Gallipoli, but when he
did he recalled an "incredible hail of bullets" on landing on the
beach.

"People were always getting hit," he remembered. He said he did not
kill a single Turkish fighter.

"I'm not a philosopher. Gallipoli was Gallipoli. That's all there was
about it," he said.

Campbell is survived by his second wife Kath, nine children, and at
last count, 33 grandchildren, 35 great-grandchildren and two
great-great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately released, but Howard offered
the family a state funeral.