Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Personal handwritten prayers of a Turkish officer found at Gallipoli, 1915

Personal handwritten prayers of a Turkish officer found at Gallipoli, 1915

Morris war diaries, 18 October 1914–22 February 1917, Alfred Prichard Kington Morris, Purchased from AP Morris, 1919, MLMSS 2886 / Item 5

Morris was a journalist from Randwick in Sydney. He enlisted on 18 August 1914, aged 21.

Morris served as stretcher-bearer and medical sergeant in the 1st and 12th Light Horse Regiments at Gallipoli and in Egypt, Sinai and Palestine.

Morris wrote in his own diary about finding the Turkish officer’s ‘diary’ while at Gallipoli.

The two items belonged to a Turkish medical officer serving at Gallipoli; one book comprises a collection of printed Koran verses, while the other contains handwritten prayers. They were found by Australian stretcher-bearer Alfred Morris at Gallipoli in August 1915.