Alec Campbell: A child soldier

Records show Alec Campbell joined the war effort when he was 18 years and 4 months, when actually he added a full two years to his age. Campbell joined the Gallipoli campaign as No. 2731 Private A. W. Campbell, 15th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force. He wasn’t old enough to shave.

His parents were unhappy with his enlistment, but still gave him parental consent to go. He was known to his comrades as ‘The Kid’, and other soldiers did their best to look after him.

In an interview in his later years, he is quoted to have said:

"It's all a bit of adventure at that age - Egypt was like a fairyland - but I suppose we had some idea of protecting Australia and England."

Campbell left from Melbourne on board HMAT Kyarra in August 1915 and arrived in Anzac Cove in November 1915. He was made a water boy, carrying blocks of ice and ammunition around for other soldiers. He did not actually go out into the battlefield and into the savage fighting, but he recalled seeing one of his comrades being shot, and the image of his leg sticking out in the bushes.

During the war, his health completely deteriorated. . Over a course of a few months, he had contracted jaundice, scabies, head lice, mumps, palsy and paralysis of the right side of the face, and would eventually lose his right eye. He was officially invalided and discharged in August 1916, after only 2 months of service; a Gallipoli veteran at age 17.

He became the last of the Anzacs and Australian survivors of Gallipoli, passing away at age 103 from pneumonia in 2002. 

 Sources:

http://www.anzacs.org/campbell.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Campbell

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/05/17/1021544071207.html