Lone Pine Memorial and Cemetery section of the Anzac ; This cemetery derives its name from the single pine tree observed to be growing here when the Australian soldiers came up here from the landing on 25 April 1915. From that date through to August there was much heavy fighting at Lone Pine, the rear of the cemetery today marking where the Anzac lines were during those months and the wall and pylon of the Lone Pine Memorial to the Missing marking the region of the Turkish trenches.
The burials and commemorations in Lone Pine represent virtually every phase of the campaign in the Anzac area between the April landing and the December evacuation. Seventy-two graves are of men killed during the ‘Battle of the landing’ between 25 April and 3 May. Most graves, however, are of men killed during the ‘August offensive’ between 6 and 10 August 1915. Among the unidentified burials are 182 so called ‘special memorials’ for Australians believed to have been buried in Lone Pine. The last Australian to be buried here is Sergeant Edward Grice, 24th Battalion, aged 35 years, who was killed in action on 18 December, just a day before the evacuation on the night of 19/20 December.
Lone Pine Cemetery is the very ground over which the famous attack on the Turkish Lone Pine positions took place on the evening of 6 August 1915. Corporal John Wadeson, 7th Battalion AIF, wrote:
Lone Pine Cemetery in 1920 before the reconstruction of the cemetery by the Imperial War Graves Commission, later Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Graves at Brown’s Dip before the relocation to Lone Pine Cemetery.
We had a ‘full hand’ dealt us when we were given the trenches won at Lonesome Pine on August 7 … We held it all that Red Sunday … it cost us something like 400 casualties … The trenches were something awful, as the dead of both Australians and Turks were still in them, and mixed up in all kinds of positions. But when things cooled off a little, burial parties were going solidly getting the awful litter away … Sometimes when the attack was solid, our dead in the bottom of the trenches, all huddled up in heaps, and it was with difficulty that fresh men could pass to take up their posts…the 7th Battalion earned distinction, as four V Cs were won by its members.
None were more aware of the human suffering at Lone Pine than the chaplains and padres who worked constantly to lift the spirits of the men in the trenches. Chaplain Walter Dexter’s diary reveals the conditions that prevailed during and after the attack. His entry for Tuesday August 10 reads:
In the Lone Pine the moving of the dead goes steadily on. All hope of getting them out for burial is given up and they are being dragged into saps and recesses, which will be filled up. The bottom of the trench is fairly clear, you have not to stand on any as you walk along and the bottom of the trench is not springy, nor do gurgling sounds come from under your feet as you walk on something soft. The men are feeling worn out but are sticking it like Britons. The stench you get used to after a bit unless a body is moved. In all this the men eat, drink and try to sleep. Smoking is their salvation and a drop of rum works wonders … Had a funeral at 6 p.m. One is obsessed with dead men and burials and I am beginning to dream of them. I suppose it is because I am so tired.
Chaplain Dexter’s experiences were not unique. Adelaide Ah Kow in her biography of Salvation Army Padre William McKenzie summed up the enormity of the task that befell the clergy on the peninsula:
[MacKenzie] …toiled with the wounded and dead for three days and nights without rest, and with only three biscuits and six pannikans of tea for nourishment, burying in that period no fewer than 647 men. By the end of that time he was so exhausted by lack of rest and food, and so torn with the sight of the suffering and the loss of so many he knew, that, he confessed years afterwards, he wished inexpressibly for death to take him also.’
Lone Pine Cemetery
Location Information
The Anzac and Suvla cemeteries are first signposted from the left hand junction of the Eceabat - Bigali road. From this junction you should travel into the main Anzac area.
At 7.6kms., take a right turn to Chunuk Bair and initially take the road to Kemalyeri. At 10.3kms, Lone Pine will be found on the left. Lone Pine Cemetery stand on the plateau at the top of Victoria Gully.
Visiting Information
The Cemetery is permanently open and may be visited at any time. Wheelchair access to the cemetery is possible via the main entrance.
Historical Information
The eight month campaign in Gallipoli was fought by Commonwealth and French forces in an attempt to force Turkey out of the war, to relieve the deadlock of the Western Front in France and Belgium, and to open a supply route to Russia through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea.
The Allies landed on the peninsula on 25-26 April 1915; the 29th Division at Cape Helles in the south and the Australian and New Zealand Corps north of Gaba Tepe on the west coast, an area soon known as Anzac. On 6 August, further landings were made at Suvla, just north of Anzac, and the climax of the campaign came in early August when simultaneous assaults were launched on all three fronts.
Lone Pine was a strategically important plateau in the southern part of Anzac which was briefly in the hands of Australian forces following the landings on 25 April. It became a Turkish strong point from May to July, when it was known by them as 'Kanli Sirt' (Bloody Ridge).
The Australians pushed mines towards the plateau from the end of May to the beginning of August and on the afternoon of 6 August, after mine explosions and bombardment from land and sea, the position was stormed by the 1st Australian Brigade. By 10 August, the Turkish counter-attacks had failed and the position was consolidated. It was held by the 1st Australian Division until 12 September, and then by the 2nd, until the evacuation of the peninsula in December.
The original battle cemetery of 46 graves was enlarged after the Armistice when scattered graves were brought in from the neighbourhood, and from Brown's Dip North and South Cemeteries, which contained the graves of 149 Australian soldiers. These cemeteries were in the depression at the head of Victoria Gully, behind the Australian trenches of April-August 1915.
There are now 1,167 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 504 of the burials are unidentified. Special memorials commemorate 183 soldiers (all but one of them Australian, most of whom died in August), who were known or believed to have been buried in Lone Pine Cemetery, or in the cemeteries at Brown's Dip.
Within the cemetery stands the LONE PINE MEMORIAL It commemorates more than 4,900 Australian and New Zealand servicemen who died in the Anzac area - the New Zealanders prior to the fighting in August 1915 - whose graves are not known. Others named on the memorial died at sea and were buried in Gallipoli waters.
Lone Pine Memorial
Location Information
The Lone Pine Memorial is at the east end of Lone Pine Cemetery.
The Anzac and Suvla cemeteries are first signposted from the left hand junction of the Eceabat - Bigali road. From this junction you should travel into the main Anzac area.
At 7.6kms., take a right turn to Chunuk Bair and initially take the road to Kemalyeri. At 10.3kms, Lone Pine will be found on the left. Lone Pine Cemetery stand on the plateau at the top of Victoria Gully.
Visiting Information
The Cemetery is permanently open and may be visited at any time. Wheelchair access to the cemetery is possible via the main entrance.
Historical Information
The eight month campaign in Gallipoli was fought by Commonwealth and French forces in an attempt to force Turkey out of the war, to relieve the deadlock of the Western Front in France and Belgium, and to open a supply route to Russia through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea.
The Allies landed on the peninsula on 25-26 April 1915; the 29th Division at Cape Helles in the south and the Australian and New Zealand Corps north of Gaba Tepe on the west coast, an area soon known as Anzac. On 6 August, further landings were made at Suvla, just north of Anzac, and the climax of the campaign came in early August when simultaneous assaults were launched on all three fronts.
Lone Pine was a strategically important plateau in the southern part of Anzac which was briefly in the hands of Australian forces following the landings on 25 April. It became a Turkish strong point from May to July, when it was known by them as 'Kanli Sirt' (Bloody Ridge).
The Australians pushed mines towards the plateau from the end of May to the beginning of August and on the afternoon of 6 August, after mine explosions and bombardment from land and sea, the position was stormed by the 1st Australian Brigade. By 10 August, the Turkish counter-attacks had failed and the position was consolidated. It was held by the 1st Australian Division until 12 September, and then by the 2nd, until the evacuation of the peninsula in December.
The LONE PINE MEMORIAL stands on the site of the fiercest fighting at Lone Pine and overlooks the whole front line of May 1915. It commemorates more than 4,900 Australian and New Zealand servicemen who died in the Anzac area - the New Zealanders prior to the fighting in August 1915 - whose graves are not known. Others named on the memorial died at sea and were buried in Gallipoli waters.The memorial stands in LONE PINE CEMETERY. The original small battle cemetery was enlarged after the Armistice when scattered graves were brought in from the neighbourhood, and from Brown's Dip North and South Cemeteries, which were behind the Australian trenches of April-August 1915.There are now 1,167 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 504 of the burials are unidentified. Special memorials commemorate 183 soldiers (all but one of them Australian, most of whom died in August), who were known or believed to have been buried in Lone Pine Cemetery, or in the cemeteries at Brown's Dip.
