Diary of Signaller Ellis Silas
August 1914 – May 1915
- The cover of Silas' diary
In 1914, after joining the 16th Battalion AIF in Perth, Western Australia, Ellis Silas began recording his experiences in a diary. It covered his training in WA, his voyage to and time in Egypt, his journey to Gallipoli, the early days of the campaign at Anzac, and finally, in mid-May 1915, his medical evacuation back to Egypt. In 1916, he undertook a revision of his diary, adding to it and having it typed. He may have intended to publish it, as a surviving copy held in the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW - ML MSS.1840, revised version, prepared 1916, typescript, signed by Silas - contains the title page Diary of an Anzac and a self-portrait sketch.
Silas claimed, in a letter attached to the diary, that his revision contained ‘much that was omitted’ in the original owing to lack of space. Eventually, he hoped he might work the ‘rough’ material up into ‘something more tangible’. It was not to be, but his reactions to the early fighting on Gallipoli show how the realities of war became a nightmare for one highly sensitive soldier.