Who was Simpson with his donkey?

John Simpson Kirkpatrick (1892 to 1915), known as Simpson, was an Australian Army medical stretcher-bearer who became famous for using a donkey to carry wounded soldiers down from the front line at Anzac Cove during the early weeks of the Gallipoli campaign. He was killed by Turkish machine gun fire on 19 May 1915 after about three weeks of service.

Simpson was born John Simpson Kirkpatrick in South Shields, England, in 1892. He worked as a merchant seaman and arrived in Australia in 1910. After the war broke out in August 1914, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force under the name John Simpson (dropping the Kirkpatrick) and was assigned to the 3rd Field Ambulance. He landed at Anzac Cove on the morning of 25 April 1915 with the first Australian troops.

On the second day at Anzac Cove, Simpson found a donkey (possibly a stray from a Greek supply unit) and began using it to carry wounded soldiers down from Shrapnel Gully and Monash Valley to the beach field hospital. He named the donkey variously (Duffy, Murphy, and Abdul appear in different accounts) and continued the work for about three weeks, becoming a familiar figure moving up and down the steep gullies under constant Turkish fire. He developed a reputation for unflappable courage and a particular skill for handling shock and casualty situations.

Simpson was killed by Turkish machine gun fire on 19 May 1915 while bringing wounded down Monash Valley. He was buried at Beach Cemetery at Anzac Cove the same day. His story was reported widely in Australian newspapers and became one of the foundational narratives of the ANZAC tradition. The Simpson and His Donkey story has been told in many forms: through the work of war correspondent Charles Bean, the 1965 film Simpson and His Donkey, Australian War Memorial exhibits, school textbooks, and countless monuments and memorials. The Australian War Memorial's Simpson and His Donkey statue and the South Shields Memorial in England both commemorate him. Several proposals to award him a posthumous Victoria Cross have been made but not granted, with the most recent unsuccessful campaign in 2013. The story is also debated by some historians who note that Simpson's actions, while courageous, were not unique among stretcher-bearers, and that the lionising of his story may have obscured the broader contribution of medical personnel at Gallipoli.