The Full Simpson story

John Simpsons Kirkpatrick aka as Simpson and his donkey was a real time hero of Gallipoli although he only survived 24 days after his arrival there.

Now let’s have no confusion here he deserted on 2 occasions from the merchant navy.  He hated taking orders and did not like relying on others.

However in his youth he saved 2 other youth from drowning, risking his own life without hesitation.  He took any work so he could support his mother in England and it seems he only volunteered for the army because he believed they would be going to England for training.  Whether he intended to remain with the army or not is just conjecture.

However they in fact went to Egypt instead and due to his muscular physique he was picked to be a stretcher bearer.  As he did not have to carry a gun suited Simpson, who although not a coward he loathed guns.

The first day he had a partner and due to heavy losses the stretcher bearer teams were reduced by 4 teams to only 2 teams of stretcher bearers.  It is said his partner was then injured the first day and so on the second day he went out alone and carried survivors back.  By the third day he saw a donkey and made a decision that he needed it more than whoever may have owned it and started carrying injured back by donkey.  He also was able to take water to others who had to wait for rescue this way and so the legend began.  But all this was not really sanctioned.  His CO had ordered him and the other stretcher bearers to not go out due to the area being under heavy enemy attack.  Simpson ignored this as he did with any other order he didn’t like and continued going out and saving lives.

His CO decided it was better to let him continue to ignore his orders rather than charging him with ignoring his orders as he was returning with so many injured men each day and was only risking his own life. So the CO decided to turn a blind eye to Simpson’s ignoring these orders.

There are some who claim he only saved the less injured who could sit on the donkey and he never reached the front line casualties, however as he was shot doing this dangerous job and had worked more than 12 hrs a day doing this I believe every man who he saved could have died at any time and he was saving those he could save.  More serious injuries could not have survived being carried on a donkey and he was alone so could not use a stretcher.

Was he a great soldier...No.

Was he a good man who always did right….No

Was he to be admired….Yes.  

Was he a hero….Yes.  

For the last 24 days of his life he risked his life every single day,  He started at 6:30am every day and worked at least 12 hour saving injured soldiers lives, he even died being shot through the heart while carrying one of the soldiers he was saving. He would have saved between 160 and a reported 

300 soldiers in the last 24 days he lived on earth somewhere between 7 and 12 men per day.

He was buried on the beach at Hell Spit, Gallipoli. Subsequently John Simpson Kirkpatrick became an important symbol of Anzac heroism at Gallipoli.

The padre claimed how brave he was after having seen him often bringing casualties in and taking water supplies out to the injured who had to wait for rescue.  Simpsons sergeant although not praising the soldier in him commended his bravery and strong work ethic in saving lives.  It was claimed his CO recommended him for bravery awards although the evidence of this is not available to me.

Nowadays the Communist Left are attacking all  our hero’s spreading lies about their heroism in an attempt to destroy our National pride.  We are experiencing this right through to our current day hero’s being accused of atrocities during recent warfare instead of understanding when the enemy are hiding among civilians we WILL have civilian casualties, that’s if they were innocent anyway.

We must defend our hero’s and not believe these detractors as one thing Australia needs more now than ever are hero’s.