Evans Head Living Museum, indyNR.com

A diary from a Casino soldier was donated to the Evans Head Living Museum.

The soldier wrote about the midnight landing and the First Australian Infantry Forces charge up the steep hill at Anzac Cove on April 25, 1915.

Private Volney George McInnes Service Number 695 from Casino enlisted at Lismore in 1914, and was immediately taken into the Australian Army Infantry Forces 9th Battalion D Corp.

He and his Battalion sailed from Port Melbourne in 1914 for Egypt, before embarking on two troop ships for the Dardanelles ahead of the landing at Anzac Cove.

He wrote:

“When the Third Brigade made the gallant charge up the hills from the open beach on Gallipoli, driving the Turks before them and winning their great position which Australians now hold firmly”.

He wrote about the soldiers he met from  Grafton, Casino, Lismore, Ballina and Byron Bay.

The first entry in his diary had a special request – that if he was to die it was his wish that his diary be returned to his sister in Casino.

Two months after landing at Anzac Cove, Private McInnes was killed in action on June 24, 1915, and he is buried at the Beach Cemetery there will his other brave Anzacs. He was 23.

The Evans Head Living Museum has started the process of copying the diary and sending the images to the National Archives of Australia, where it’s hoped they will be added to Private McInnes’ War Service Records, which are available online.

The Evans Head Living Museum, next to the beach kiosk, is open on Anzac Day at 10am–1pm.

This story was provided by the Evans Head Living Museum and was published in the Richmond Valley Inky Issue April 23.

This article appeared on indyNR.com on 25 April 2025.