Letters From the Front

Dated: October 6, 1915

News from the Dardanelles

The following letter to D. M. Soole from J. H. Murray, the soldier from Bankhead [Alberta] who was decorated for distinguished service at the Dardanelles, will be read with interest by his many friends here and in the briquette town:

Dardanelles, Oct. 6, 1915

Dear Mr. Soole. --In receipt of yours of June 17, which reached its destination yesterday.

The letter certainly took a long time to reach me, but I was at Malta in the Royal Naval hospital at about the time it was due at the Peninsula; it had been to the Dardanelles and then returned to Malta, but by that time I was back at the Peninsula, where the letter finally caught up with me at last.

I am still in the land of the living or, to be more correct, am alive in the land of the dead and feeling very fit. Just at present we are having rather an easy time in this particular part of the Peninsula and the weather is very agreeable.

Sorry to say our casualties have been very heavy, but nothing as compared with the Turkish losses; our naval and the trench batteries play the deuce with them.

We are making good progress, slow but sure, and have had no reverses since landing last April.

I have been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, which is a naval decoration.