Think of it as a flying history lesson. When a Qantas 747-400 takes off from Sydney bound for Istanbul in less than three weeks the passengers will comprise widows of Gallipoli veterans, their carers, and also descendants fortunate enough to have won tickets in the government ballot to attend battlefield commemorations for the centenary of the landings.
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But it has emerged that even the crew, from the first officer to brother and sister flight attendants with Turkish backgrounds, have links to original soldiers.
Second officer Peter Tait said his great uncle, Herbert Harkins, enlisted aged 19 pretending to be his 22-year-old brother. He landed at Gallipoli with the 15th Battalion on April 25 only to be shot at Quinn's Post in a major Turkish counteroffensive on May 29 and be sent back to Cairo. Harkins returned to Gallipoli and was shot again in August. He later went to the Western Front and was shot a third time but survived.
Business First flight attendants Hale Spohr, born in Turkey, and Dogan Irmak, born in Australia, said their grandfather "Saraf" did military service in Gallipoli. Mr Irmak said the trip raises many patriotic feelings.
"Firstly because we are of Turkish origin and secondly because we are also Australian. We have a very unique connection to Gallipoli," he said. Ms Spohr said: "Who would have know 100 years down the track that two Turks could be representing Qantas, representing Australia and going back to Gallipoli."
First officer Stephen Last was wearing his own RAAF service medals and those of his grandfather, Robert Valentine Fell, who enlisted three months after the landings and served with the 2nd Light Horse Brigade and the 10th Light Horse after the retreat from Gallipoli. Fell served in the Palestinian and Syrian campaigns as a dispatch rider and wrote an essay on the Battle of Beersheba from his point of view.
Tineka Solomon, also a Business First attendant, said her great-grandfather, Henry George Nield, of New Zealand, was at Gallipoli. She said: "It will be of great significance for my family. He did survive the war, he got gassed and sent to London."
Business First attendant Geoff Sanders, who is travelling with his son, Blake Sanders, said Geoff's great uncle, Herbert Burdett Sanders, landed on April 25in the first wave with the 2nd Battalion C Company, survived, then suffered dysentery and was sent to England then later killed at Poizeres on the Western Front aged 19. His parents didn't find out for four months.
Meredith McDowell-Jones, also a Business First attendant, said her grandfather, George Stanley McDowell, landed on April 25 and was one of the last to leave on the last boat. He was injured twice but was sent to the Western Front which he survived, receiving the Military Cross.
