Item #116900 A small laminated poster featuring 'The Last Anzac', signed by Alec Campbell when he was 102. The Last Anzac, Alexander 'Alec' William CAMPBELL, the final surviving Australian participant of the Gallipoli campaign during the First World War.

A small laminated poster featuring 'The Last Anzac', signed by Alec Campbell when he was 102

Oblong foolscap folio, illustrated with portrait photographs of Campbell in uniform at the age of 16, and at the age of 102, plus a map of the east coast of Australia, NZ and Norfolk Island, with a few captions; both Campbell and his second wife Kathleen signed the poster before it was laminated; in fine condition.

The poster was apparently produced by the Norfolk Island Military Museum in 2001. The laminate on the verso has been inscribed in felt-tipped pen: 'Carried by LS Phoebe Evans | Federation Guards, Gallipoli | 25 April 2015 [with her signature]'. Ms Evans was one of only eighteen members of the Australian Federation Guards in the contingent that attended the centenary celebrations at Gallipoli. Alec Campbell 'landed at Anzac Cove in early November 1915. He assisted in carrying ammunition, stores and water to the trenches. He received a minor wound in the fighting at Gallipoli; when evacuated with the rest of the Australian forces in 1916, he became ill with a fever which caused partial facial paralysis. He was subsequently invalided home aboard HMAT "Port Sydney" on 24 June 1916, and was formally discharged on 22 August 1916, a Gallipoli veteran at only 17. He only fought in the war for two months; he later explained tersely, "I joined for adventure. There was not a great feeling of defending the Empire. I lived through it, somehow. I enjoyed some of it. I am not a philosopher. Gallipoli was Gallipoli"' (Wikipedia). He died in Hobart on 16 May 2002, aged 103.

Item #116900

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