But who remembers the naval campaign to the far south of Anzac Cove, in the actual Dardanelles waterway? Here, five Allied ships were sunk, most by shellfire. 

The French warship Bouvet was the exception, hitting a floating mine, then listing to starboard to suddenly disappear, immediately drowning 95per cent of the ship’s 704-man crew.

Closer to home, the person regarded for decades as Australia’s most famous Anzac – John Simpson Kirkpatrick – was actually a Geordie from South Shields, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in England. 

 He came to Australia on a British merchant ship before promptly deserting right here in our port of Newcastle in May 1910. To avoid detection, he shortened his name to John Simpson and went inland, later returning to work on coastal ships operating out of Newcastle Harbour.

When World War I began, he decided to go home and became an army stretcher-bearer at Gallipoli. The Sikhs with whom Simpson worked with called him “Bahadur”, or ‘‘bravest of the brave”.

He was killed just over three weeks later by a sniper after saving the lives of hundreds of soldiers. Shortland MP Jill Hall later tried for years to get him a posthumous Victoria Cross.   

An equally strange but true tale concerns young Kurri Kurri teenager MaudButler, who tried to join the Red Cross early in WWI but was rejected because of her lack of training.

She soon cut her hair short, bought a soldier’s uniform and twice boarded Australian troopships (as a man) determined to go to war. 

Repeatedly arrested, she made headlines across the nation, then vanished from the pages of history.

But now, let’s look at another odd tale, that of a mystery enemy sniper on the Gallipoli peninsula.

It was told to me more than 40 years ago by a sprightly 94-year-old William “Bill” Hoole at his Speers Point home on the eve of Anzac Day commemorations, so it seems fitting now to retell part of it here.

Hoole said he was a stretcher-bearer with the Fifth Field Ambulance serving on the Gallipoli Peninsula, but at Suvla Bay, also known as North Anzac, at the time British forces were trying to secure a bridgehead there to link up with the struggling Anzacs.

Hunter RSL officials believed him to be Newcastle’s oldest soldier, having served in both the Boer War and World War I. 

His hellish four-month tour of duty was cut short when he was wounded by shrapnel.      

Hoole said everyone’s life was made a misery by a mysterious sniper who managed to shoot about 20 medical corps and soldiers before a trap was set.

“We were being singled out. He’d fire one shot, that was all ... then he’d vanish. So my mate and I had to act as decoys running across this gully,” he said.

“It was like being in a shooting alley with yourself the target. There was this lone shot, same as always, and wham! A wooden handle on the stretcher shattered.”

Hoole said someone then noticed a hole beneath a bush. The sniper was underneath it with a hole just the size of a rifle barrel to shoot through.

A few unarmed men madly dug down with their bare hands and found roofing of rough planks, tore it up and jumped into the pit where there was a fight and a lot of yelling.

“Finally, they managed to bring the lone sniper to the surface [but] it wasn’t a man. It was a Turkish woman soldier,” Hoole said.

“Her underground post was piled with water casks and food. She could have stayed there for a year if she wanted.”

Hoole said an officer took away the small jewelled dagger she had carried for protection, but didn’t know what happened to her. However, the usual fate for any enemy sniper caught was summary execution.

I always thought the story somewhat unusual, until recently. 

That’s when I learned of a new Russian-Ukranian film about a legendary Soviet sniper, but in World War II. 

Nicknamed “Lady Death”, young Lyudmila Pavlichenko  is said to have killed 309 Nazi soldiers on the frontline in 1941. 

A final word now though on Anzac should go to the late Norm Bassan, once the unofficial mayor of Stockton and the suburb’s last known WWI veteran. 

In 1989, Bassan said his family never knew how his elder brother Reg died. They only found out in 1965 that Reg had died at the Anzac landing, just two months before his 18th birthday.

“But you know what? Reg was killed in 1915 but he was listed as missing, presumed dead,” Norm Bassan said.

“We weren’t told officially until well into 1916. All that time his allotment, say three shillings (30¢) a day, or half his pay, was being paid into a bank back home for his family. The government then asked for a refund,” Norm Bassan said.