Anzac Jack knife and case

This bone-handled knife and case was made by Sapper John (Jack) Hoey Moore DCM, while serving with the 1st Field Company Engineers, Australian Imperial Force (AIF).

New Zealand-born, 'Anzac Jack' served with the AIF at Gallipoli and later on the Western Front. He made the knife while recuperating from wounds received at Gallipoli and sent it home to his mother in New Zealand. Supposedly, the handle of the knife had been made from the shinbone of a dead Turkish soldier. It was enclosed in an ornate wooden case bearing the inscription 'Te Pohutukawa, Knife made by Sapper J.H. Moore. Handle from Shin Bone of Turk'. His mother used it to raise funds for war-ravaged Belgium.

In July 2007 the Army Museum Waiouru hired a forensic anthropologist to examine the knife's handle. They concluded that the bone was the wrong shape to be a human shinbone and that the light flecks of grain in the bone were more typical of horse and deer. It is most likely to have come from one of the many donkeys used to carry supplies at Gallipoli. It would have been easy for Sapper Moore to have come across mixed bones and picked up one believing it to be human.

• Read more about 'Anzac Jack' in J.H Moore, Anzac Jack, W.J Deed Printing Ltd, Waiuku, 2004.

Image courtesy National Army Museum Te Mata Toa
Accession Number: 2007.558
Permission of the National Army Museum Te Mata Toa must be obtained before any reuse of this image.