"Private Wilfred Lancelot McMurray volunteered for service at the outbreak of the First World War. A dental technician, he had been a Territorial Force member of A Company of the 11th Taranaki Regiment for three years, and on enlistment in the Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force was posted to the Taranaki Company of the Wellington Infantry Battalion.

Wilfred landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, and spent two weeks fighting to maintain the tenuous beachhead. In early May the entire New Zealand Infantry Brigade was shipped south to Cape Helles at the end of the peninsula, and attacked on 8 May 1915 across the open ground of the Daisy Patch into the face of Ottoman machine guns.

The losses were horrendous, with more than 800 New Zealanders killed, wounded, or missing. One of those missing as Wilfred McMurray. It wasn't until the conclusion of a board of enquiry held at Moascar, Ismailia, Egypt on 16 January 1916, that the 20 year-old was declared as "believed to be dead" in the Dardanelles.

It wasn't until later that the extent of his brave actions that day came to light. A letter from Private Frank Shirley to his mother was published in the Taranaki Daily News, and outlined how:

"...I then found out that I was next to one of my tent mates, Will McMurray, and it is to him that I owe my life, for all through that long day while I was lying there and could not get out for the rain of bullets, he kept asking how I was feeling and giving me water. When night came he crawled over to me, and half carried and half dragged me over a hill to safety. How it was that he was not hit is a marvel to me. He had carried another man out earlier in the day, and had come back to the firing line as if nothing had happened. What do you call that? Risking his life to save others, and now he is reported missing. I hope to God that he is a prisoner and not killed. He was such a fine fellow, was poor Mac., and he was liked so much by us all."

Wilfred received no official recognition of his gallantry, and his remains were never recovered. He is commemorated on the New Zealand Memorial, at Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery, Helles, Turkey, on the Auckland Grammar School War Memorial, and in the Auckland War Memorial Museum Hall of Memories.

When his father Henry McMurray passed away in October 1918, a memorial to Wilfred was added to his headstone in Taradale Cemetery. A small family tribute to a loving son and brave soldier."

[NZ Remembrance Army/Facebook - anon. Retrieved 2/1/22]