Lone Pine Memorial
From Our Contribution
 Lone Pine Memorial and Cemetery | |
 late afternoon light courtesy wikipedia | |
| Monument Details | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lone Pine Memorial |
| Location | Gallipoli, Turkey |
| Dedication Date | 1934 |
Contents
History
Lone Pine Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery dating from World War I in the former Anzac sector of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey and the location of the Lone Pine Memorial, one of five memorials on the peninsula which commemorate servicemen of the former British Empire killed in the campaign but who have no known grave.
Setting
The cemetery was constructed during the campaign and at the end of it held 46 graves. It was greatly enlarged after the Armistice by moving isolated graves into it and by consolidating other smaller cemeteries in the area, such as Brown's Dip North and South Cemeteries.
The Lone Pine Memorial commemorates 4,934 Australian and New Zealand troops killed in the sector but who have no known grave. In addition special memorials commemorate 182 Australian and 1 British soldier thought to be buried in the cemetery but whose graves have not been identified. The Anzac troops renamed the plateau, originally Plateau 400, Lonesome Pine after the single Aleppo pine tree (Pinus halepensis) on the plateau, and a popular song published in 1913, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,[1] and this name was shortened to Lone Pine. There had originally been several trees but all but one had been cut down by Turkish troops to provide wood for covering trenches.
The tree was obliterated during the fighting, but at least two Australian soldiers took cones from it back to Australia, from which numerous commemorative trees have since been produced.[1]
The rear of the cemetery marks where the Anzac lines were during the fighting, and the wall and pylon of the memorial the Turkish trenches.
Description
A plaque on the low wrought-iron fence around the tree reads:
After the capture of the Lone Pine ridge in Gallipoli (6 August 1915), an Australian Soldier who had taken part in the attack, in which his brother was killed, found a cone on one of the branches used by the Turks as overhead cover for their trenches, and sent it to his mother. From seed shed by it she raised the tree, which she presented to be planted in the War Memorial grounds in honour of her own and others' sons who fell at Lone Pine.
The Lone Pine Memorial, situated in the Lone Pine Cemetery at Anzac, is the main Australian Memorial on Gallipoli, and one of four memorials to men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Designed by Sir John Burnet, the principal architect of the Gallipoli cemeteries, it is a thick tapering pylon 14.3 metres high on a square base 12.98 metres wide. It is constructed from limestone mined at Ilgardere in Turkey.
The Memorial stands over the centre of the Turkish trenches and tunnels which were the scene of heavy fighting during the August offensive. Most cemeteries on Gallipoli contain relatively few marked graves, and the majority of Australians killed on Gallipoli are commemorated here.
Monument Details
TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LASTING MEMORY OF 3208 AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS WHO
FOUGHT ON GALLIPOLI IN 1915 AND HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVES, AND 456 NEW ZEALAND
SOLDIERS WHOSE NAMES ARE NOT RECORDED IN OTHER AREAS OF THE PENINSULA BUT
WHO FELL IN THE ANZAC AREA AND HAVE NO KNOWN GRAVES, AND ALSO OF
960 AUSTRALIANS AND 252 NEW ZEALANDERS WHO FIGHTING ON GALLIPOLI IN 1915
INCURRED MORTAL WOUNDS OR SICKNESS AND FOUND BURIAL AT SEA.
The names are recorded by Unit, by rank and then alphabetically.
Soldiers
10th Light Horse Regiment
11th Battalion
- LCpl Walter Bell Blair
12th Battalion
16th Battalion
- L/Cpl Phillip (Harry) Harrison
- Pte Herbert Wright Aldred
- Pte Frank Ball
- Pte Frederick Lawrence Close
- Pte John James Emery
- Pte Rupert Arthur Kent Goodchild (served as Arthur Kent)
- Pte James Edward Laugher
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Pine_Commonwealth_War_Graves_Commission_Cemetery accessed 19 Nov 2017