Up to two years after the Gallipoli landing, the families of some soldiers who fell were still waiting for confirmation their missing loved one really was dead.
In the chaos and confusion of the campaign, the raw Australian Imperial Force was hard-pressed to conduct a complex military operation, let alone keep track of the fate of its many soldiers.
And that's where the Red Cross came in.
Founded in Switzerland in 1863 and launched in Australia at the outbreak of war, the Red Cross and its state offices became the point of contact for anxious families seeking news, any news, about wounded or missing soldiers.
Of those busy state bureaux, only the records from Adelaide remain intact, recording each case in heart-breaking chronological order, starting with a letter from family or loved ones.
Private John Pengelly's sister Ruby wrote in March 1916 that they last heard from him in July 1915, aboard a ship transporting him to Gallipoli. Not for two years did the family learn he was killed in action in August.
The sister of Private Frank Crowhurst wrote that they had heard nothing of him since the landing "which makes one very anxious."
"The suspense is dreadful. What a wicked war," she wrote. Private Crowhurst died on April 25.
Flinders University Professor Melanie Oppenheimer said more than a year after the landing, over 1800 soldiers remained missing.
"There were many instances where the men had simply disappeared without trace and this was something inexplicable for the families. Men had disappeared without the knowledge of the military," she told the Gallipoli centenary conference in Canberra.
Even before accounts of April 25 appeared in newspapers, the first official casualty list was published on May 6, 1915, listing the names of 49 killed and 40 wounded.
Such lists were published almost daily for the rest of the war and in early days, many families only learned of a dead or missing son from the newspapers before official notification.
Oppenheimer said families lived with hope.
"One of the things they wanted was that the men might turn up in a prisoner of war camp. That was considered a good option," she said.
"Alternatively that in fact they had lost their mind and their memory and that they were somewhere in London in a hospital."
State Red Cross office placed advertisements for their (free) services next to newspaper casualty lists.
Inquiries were forwarded to volunteer searchers in Egypt and later Europe, men who served in military uniform with honorary rank. Their job was to piece together the fate of a soldier through compiling eye-witness accounts.
The searchers went to great efforts to ascertain a soldier's fate, interviewing fellow soldiers in their barracks and in hospitals in Australia and abroad.
An article in the Australian War Memorial's Wartime magazine suggests considerable efforts were made to to spare family members the worst details. Historian Tony Cunneen says men invariably died instantly or passed away unconscious and without pain.
Oppenheimer said the Red Cross records help explain the failure of the conscription referendums in 1916 and again in 1917.
"Shattered families were determined that no government should be allowed to compel their men to war, especially when things went wrong and especially when the military couldn't even keep track of their loved ones," she said.
"This was a public relations disaster for the AIF and the Red Cross showed them up. All the inquirers had a vote, both the men and especially the women."
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