The rocky shores of the Gallipoli peninsula mark the final resting place for some of these men – machine gunners, field ambulance officers, infantry – their haunting portraits returned for just a moment to the cove where so many met their fate.

Others escaped the bloodshed of Turkey only to die on the battlefields in France, while a few like Harry Murray survived serious wounds on both front lines before returning to Australia after the armistice.

One of the country's most decorated soldiers – "a remarkable man of indomitable courage" – Murray rarely attended a memorial or ceremony in the years that followed his military service.

Famously modest, it is difficult to know what the quiet, charismatic leader would make of this week's commemorations of the deadly allied campaign in what is now modern-day Turkey.

As the sun set into the Aegean Sea behind Beach Cemetery, Murray was again, for a moment, a leader of men, his photograph planted in the sand that was once a familiar, awful battleground to him.

Murray's portrait, along with those of the 24 other servicemen, was printed and mounted by Fairfax photographer Joe Armao, bringing new life to the soldier's images on the 100th anniversary of the brutal, eight-month battle for control of the strategic Gallipoli peninsula.

Of Harry Murray, the historian of the 16th Battalion wrote: "To Murray belongs the honour of rising from a machine-gun private to the command of a machine-gun battalion of 64 guns, and of receiving more fighting decorations than any other infantry soldier in the British Army in the Great War." 

For his bravery on Gallipoli, where he landed on April 25, 1915, Murray was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, then commissioned as an officer in the 13th Battalion, the Australian War Memorial notes.

In 1916 he travelled to the battlefields of France and was promoted lieutenant colonel to command the 4th Machine Gun Battalion and later awarded the French Croix de Guerre and appointed Companion  of the Order of St Michael and St George.

Murray received the highest honour – the Victoria Cross – for an attack he led against German forces at Stormy Trench in 1917, prompting historian C.E.W Bean to describe him as "the most distinguished fighting officer" in the Australian Imperial Force.

His great-great-great-grandniece, Kayla Adams, is one of 98 Victorian students whose relatives fought in the World War 1 battle attending the ceremonies on the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25.

For each of the 24 portraits there is a student here in Gallipoli to remember their sacrifice, the deep scars they carried – physical and mental – following the war and the lives lost in the trenches.  

"In my family Harry Murray is discussed as a brave man, and it is only quite recently that we have really looked into what he did and our connections to him," says 15-year-old Kayla, who attends Red Cliffs Secondary College, near Mildura.

"Having that connection, knowing that some of his spirit still lives with me and being able to travel here and see where he was is very special."