Gallipoli exhibition opens next week at Waiouru Army Museum

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 1, Issue 43, 17 April 1984, Page 3

Gallipoli exhibition opens next week at Waiouru Army Museum

'Gallipoli' is a name known to most New Zealanders. However, probably only one person in a hundred would have any idea where it is, or what actually happened there nearly 70 years ago. In conjunction with Television New Zealand and the Auckland publishing firm of Hodder and Stoughton, the Army Museum at Waiouru plans to redress this historical blank in the minds of many New Zealanders. Next week the Army Museum is to mount a major exhibition which will cover in detail all aspects of that grim military campaign of 1915. Entitled 'Gallipoli — The New Zealand Story', the Museum's new exhibition will open to the public on 25 April — ANZAC Day. It will follow closely on the heels of a major TVNZ documentary of the same J^wie, to be screened on the ^Wening of Sunday 22 April. And a new book on the subject, written by Major Christopher Pugsley and published by Hodder and Stoughton, will be launched at the Army Museum on the eve of ANZAC Day. Major Pugsley's historical volume will also be entitled

'Gallipoli — The New Zealand Story'. The new exhibition at the Museum will replace the current display of Cecil Beaton's War Photographs which has proven very popular since the opening of the Museum's new extension last July, The Cecil Beaton exhibition closed on 31 March 1984. The Cable Price Downer Group of Companies had made a grant of $15,000 to the Army Museum to help mount the Gallipoli exhibition. _ The Tourist and Publicity Department has offered to print, free of charge, a range of largescale historical photographs.

The theme of the exhibition will be to show how the nine-month campaign developed, from the first landing on the peninsula on 25 April 1915 to the eventual withdrawal on 20 December 1915. In many ways the campaign was a watershed in the social history of New Zealand. Eight thousand five hundred and fifty six New Zealanders, or nearly one percent of the country's 1915 population, saw combat in the network of trenches established by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on the peninsula.

Two thousand seven hundred and twelve of them died during those nine months and 4,752 were wounded; almost every man who served for any length of time at Gallipoli suffered from some sort of medical disability. Principal designer for the Army Museum, Mr Gary Coochman of Wellington, has already spent several months planning and pre-

paring the comprehensive exhibition. It will include a wide range of photographs, artefacts and a large scale model of the peninsula which was used.by TVNZ in the making of its documentary. In addition there will be a special audio-visual display showing interviews with Gallipoli veterans filmed last year by TVNZ.