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Corporal William Dunstan

Unit: 7th Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 1st Division
Action: 9 August 1915, Lone Pine trenches, Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey
When Lieutenant Symons left Goldenstedt's Post to recapture Jacob's Trench, Captain Frederick Harold Tubb, 33, was put in charge of the post, and ordered to defend it with a group of men including two corporals from the 7th Battalion, Alexander Burton, 22, and William Dunstan, 20.
This is the only occasion when three Australians, fighting side-by-side, all were awarded the Victoria Cross. Burton, who died in the action, was the first Australian soldier to receive the award posthumously.
Australia's official war historian C.E.W. Bean describes the action: ``Tubb had at that position 10 men, eight of whom were on the parapet, while two corporals, Webb and Wright, were told to remain on the floor of the trench in order to catch and throw back the enemy's bombs, or else to smother their explosion by throwing over them Turkish overcoats which were lying about the trenches.
``A few of the enemy, shouting `Allah!', had in the first rush scrambled into the Australian trench, but had been shot or bayoneted.''
``Tubb and his men now fired at them over the parapet, shooting all who came up Goldenstendt's Trench or who attempted to creep over the open ...
``But one by one the men who were catching bombs were mutilated. Wright clutched at one which burst in his face and killed him. Webb, an orphan from Essendon, continued to catch them, but presently both his hands were blown away and, after walking out of the Pine, he died at Brown's Dip.
``At one moment several bombs burst simultaneously in Tubb's recess. Four men in it were killed or wounded; a fifth was blown down and his rifle shattered. Tubb, bleeding from bomb wounds in arm and scalp, continued to fight, supported in the end only by a Ballarat recruit, Corporal Dunstan, and a personal friend of his own, Corporal Burton of Euroa.
``At this stage there occurred at the barricade a violent explosion, which threw back the defenders and tumbled down the sandbags ... Dunstan and Burton were helping to rebuild the barrier when a bomb went off between them, killing Burton and temporarily blinding his comrade. Tubb obtained further men from the next post, Tubb's Corner; but the enemy's attack weakened ...''
Biography: The man who was awarded the highest honour for his valour and created something of a media dynasty, worked as a clerk in a drapery store before the war.
Dunstan was born at Ballarat, Victoria on 8 March, 1895, joined the cadets and then transferred to the part-time Citizen Military Forces.
He enlisted in the AIF in June 1915 and was promoted to corporal three days before the attack. He recovered the sight he lost temporarily in the VC action but was shipped home medically unfit and was demobilised in 1916, although he continued to serve in the militia.
He married in 1918 and fathered two sons. He joined the Herald and Weekly Times as an accountant and by his retirement in 1953, he was general manager.
He was joint manager of the Australian Newsprint Pool during World War II and the chairman of the Australian Newspapers Proprietors' Association. His two sons, William and Keith both served in World War II, while Keith became a well-known newspaper journalist.