Gallipoli 100: Helping to remember family sacrifice

Herbert A. Knight, a young man who had shown great promise in his hometown of Wanganui, was shot down on May 8, 1915.

Despite having already spent that day clambering around the hills at Gallipoli carrying ammunition up to the frontlines, he had volunteered to go out and bury a mule carcass.

My great-great-uncle was just 20 years old when a Turkish sniper shot him through the heart.

Like so many young men killed in World War I, he was among the cream of his generation.

I will be honoured to be at Gallipoli next week to cover the 100-year commemorations for the and help ensure the sacrifice of my family and that made by many thousands of others is never forgotten.

Alan Gibson

Herbert had been a prefect at Wanganui Collegiate School, was in the school's 1st XV and 1st XI, and was a good boxer.

His older brother, George, was also at Gallipoli and had the terrible job of writing home to tell their mother of "the greatest sorrow that has ever happened in our family".

But there was more to come.

By the end of the war, George would be killed at Passchendaele while another brother, Douglas Knight, was killed at the Somme. Their family never recovered from the loss.

My grandfather was a typically strong stoic hill-country farmer, not easily given to displays of emotion, but when the deaths of his uncles in the Great War were spoken of, the pain of our family's sacrifice was there to be seen in his reddening eyes.

I will be honoured to be at Gallipoli next week to cover the 100-year commemorations for the Herald and help ensure the sacrifice of my family and that made by many thousands of others is never forgotten.