Australia's secret prisoners

It was a journey which would take her on an 8000km trip around Turkey to visit former POW camps. Then there were hours and hours poring over Turkish manuscripts in original Ottaman script which had never been translated into English. Her husband, Sedat Bulgu’s “useless bloody degree” in Old Persian had indeed proved useful.

It was while the couple were visiting Sedat’s family in Istanbul 15 years ago that he mentioned the nearby Commonwealth cemetery Hayda Pasha, where nine Australians were buried.

“I wondered why they were buried there and started to look at archives. There was hardly anything written on them at all,” Lawless said.

And so began investigations on the Gallipoli prisoners of war for her PhD, which she started while working full-time as a history inspector with the Board of Studies (an educational body which examines the history curriculum in schools).

It took her three years to identify known POWs and with the assistance of several grants, Lawless visited England to check out British archives and travelled extensively in Turkey visiting the sites of the POW camps.

“It was so exciting finding some of the buildings they [POWs] described and were living in,” Lawless said.

And everywhere they went people were only too happy to help.

“We were treated with such kindness,” the now 65-year-old said.

“In Afyon people were following us and trying to help, saying ‘my grandfather said it was here’ and someone else would say ‘my grandfather said it was here’ and we’d get caught in a great debate about what their grandfather had said.”

In the little town of Gediz, local historian Mehmet Pinar told them about members of the town band who had loaned the POWs a trombone. He took them into an old council chambers where wind instruments, a drum and marching boots belonging to the former band members could still be seen.

“In a lot of little towns the only thing that remains are the railway stations – a lot were destroyed by earthquakes and fire,” Lawless explained.

Most of the POWs were paid to work on the railways in Turkey, building a line from Berlin to Bagdad.

Contrary to popular belief, they were not poorly treated.

While Lawless found some embellished their writings as they wanted “revenge on the people who had held them captive”, there were many examples of kindness, and for POW officers the biggest problem was boredom.

To entertain themselves they would go on hunting expeditions and write and perform plays. As there were no female prisoners, young male officers would dress up as women, one British officer “Sonia” looking quite the part.

The POW officers had their own private homes and were even provided with a housekeeper.

Over the years Lawless came to know the soldiers well and developed a few favourites. One of those was Lieutenant Leslie Luscombe. “He was such a sweetie,” Lawless said.

“He would send money anonymously to the men to buy food.”

He wrote a book about his experiences, entitled “The Story of Harold Earl, Australian.”

The lower ranks lived in camps with communal eating arrangements, and although they were required to work, they also had access to alcohol and brothels.

Cultural misunderstandings were frequent.

The Australians were expecting the Turks to be “little squat, dark men with moustaches”, mistaking the “European-looking” soldiers for Germans.

Used to a diet rich in meat, the Australians were unimpressed by the Turkish menu of vegetables and legumes they considered “food you would feed the chickens on”.

“They were not starving and they were not beaten to death,” Lawless said.

Of the 67 POWs, 36 per cent died, half in Turkish field hospitals from their wounds and the remainder from the epidemics raging through the country at the time.

Lawless has spoken at conferences around the country on the experience of the POWs, including lectures at a university in Turkey. Her book will be published in Turkish next year.

Kismet: The Story of the Gallipoli Prisoners of War is available by contacting Australian Scholarly Publishing in Melbourne.