Once on Chunuk Bair

by Maurice Shadbolt

8 August 1915. Before dawn, the Wellington Regiment, part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, commences an offensive to seize Chunuk Bair, a pivotal peak overlooking Gallipoli Bay. As inept British Generals look on from their battleships, the Regiment captures the high ground. However, their success is only fleeting as the Turks launch a massive counter-attack. With extraordinary courage, the stalwart young Wellingtonians battle to hold off the enemy, firing their rifles and those of their fallen companions until the wood of the stock is too hot to touch.

Maurice Shadbolt was one of New Zealand's most celebrated novelists, playwrights, history-writers and storytellers and in this rarely-performed classic, he recreates a tragic episode of modern a battle that defined us as a nation. Of the 760 men who had reached the summit, 711 had become casualties. This is their story.

Vivid and visceral, upsetting and uplifting, Once on Chunuk Bair is a searing tribute to the sacrifice a generation made. It is a tale of tragedy, heroism and heartbreak and, a century after the outbreak of World War One, stands as a masterpiece of remembrance.

106 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1976

About the author

Maurice Shadbolt was a major New Zealand fiction writer and playwright. He published numerous novels and collections of short fiction, as well as novellas, non-fiction, and a play. His writing often drew on his own family history. Shadbolt won several fellowships and almost every major literary prize, some more than once. He was capped Honorary Doctor of Literature by the University of Auckland in 1997.