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LONE PINE CEMETERY
IF STONES COULD SPEAK - ANZAC
Right beside
me , within a space of fifteen feet, I can count fourteen of our boys stone
dead. Ah! It is a piteous sight. Men and boys who yesterday were full of joy
and life, now lying there, cold-cold-dead-their eyes glassy, their faces
shallow and covered with dust –soulless-gone-somebody’s son, somebody’s boy
–now merely a thing. Thank God that their loved ones cannot see them now
–dead, with the blood congealed or oozing out. God what a sight. The Major
is standing next to me and he says, ‘Well, we have won” Great God –won- what
means a victory and all those bodies within arms’ reach – then may I never
witness a defeat.
"The Gallipoli Diary of Sergeant Lawrence", (Carlton 1981), R. East, p. 69
The sights in
the Lone Pine works were too terrible for words, so I won’t describe that at
all, but the way those chaps took the trenches, and the way they held on, was
the equal of any defeat of arms ever accomplished. One must remember that
these men had been constantly fighting for four months, and are thin and
worn. The Turks are magnificient fighters, and are very brave man ...
Letter from an unknown Australian officer quoted in "Gallipoli", (Sydney
2002),
Les Carlyon, p. 365
placed upon these
young troops was only realised when the Colonel of the Deal Battalion (*),
visiting a section of his trenches, was shot by his men, who in a fit of spy
mania, killed him, wounded three others, and slightly bayoneted Colonel Mc
Nicoll.
"The Story of Anzac", (Sydney 1981) Volume I, Charles E. W. Bean, p. 598-9.
(*)
... Having
drunk whisky
to dull the pain Scobie had “a recollection of staggering down a creek with my
revolver in my hand, and having another whisky, then listening for
our big guns, to see which direction to take, went straight towards them, and
came upon third battalion men who put on another bandage, and applied more
whisky, and here I am”.
..... Lt. Col. Scobie recovered from losing the bridge of his nose and was
nursed back to health coincidentally by his sister Louisa Stobo, who worked in
the same Cairo Army hospital. However he was killed leading the 2nd battalion
in its charge against Lone Pine on 6 August. Lt. Col. Scobie ordered his men
to retreat in the face of a murderous enemy counterattack and bravely covered
their retreat himself by throwing bombs at the enemy.
Lt-Colonel Robert
Scobie quoted in "Gallipoli Diaries", (East Roseville), Jonathan King, p. 32-33
REST IN PEACE
Lt Colonel
Robert Scobie, the commander of the 2nd batallion AIF
was seriously wounded on the 25th April :
"... and got it on the nose, and of course it bled some, just spouted out, and
each time a shell came along I
ducked and it spouted more. I began to feel weak, and decided to go to
the rear, and left Richardson in charge. Somehow I got out between our fellows
and the Turks on the way in and was mighty lucky to escape and only for the
whisky flask I am sure I wouldn’t be here”.
And some "men of the cloth" were more fanatic than others :
He’s a brilliant, fiery debater, a fervid Evangilist (*), a versatile scholar
and a rabid partisan all in one ... If convincing were needed, he absolutely
convinced us all of the righteousness of our cause and likened the present
struggle for liberty to a Holy Crusade. So when we finally sang “Onward,
Christian soldiers,” we meant it ...
"Love Letters of an Anzac" , Oliver Hogue (trooper bluegum), p. 26-27
AT PEACE
AT REST
"Brown's Dip", period picture reproduced from "The Gallipoli Campaign, 1915", (CWGC-2002).
Last updated : 01/02/08
On Thursday the twenty-ninth, ... the Fifth were withdrawn for reorganisation, the garrison now on this part of the Peninsula being adequate. Accordingly the Battalion mustered on Shell Green, the only flat ground within the sector, a sloping rectangle, cleared of scrub, and evidently once cultivated. The conviction that the Battalion was almost extinct, which nearly everyone seems to have had, was dissipated when the men who had been for the time with other units dribbled in and the roll call showed the strength as being about 390 officers and men. The landing strength had been 32 officers and 1,026 other ranks. Many glad reunions took place among mates who had believed each other killed, but many looked in vain for their pals in each little group that straggled up the gully to augment the ranks.
It was now
possible in some measure to ascertain how the Brigade had suffered, and
seventeen hundred casualties proved to have been their cost of the fighting.
The Brigade staff itself had sustained heavy proportional casualties from a
shell which landed near the entrance to the shallow dug-out at the confluence
of the Wire and the Shrapnel Gullies.
Major Fethers and Major Saker were killed, the latter meeting
his death while organising the firing line on the Monday afternoon. Wounded on
the previous day, this gallant soldier, with an imperturbility and courage
peculiarly his own, carried on with a fine disregard for his own safety, and
steadied the reeling, broken line. Major Saker had seen service with the
British regular army in the South African War, and never did this tall, spare
man with the grizzled moustache, use his knowledge of men to greater advantage
than when he won the hearts of “ C” Company. Quiet and serious outwardly, he
displayed at the mess-table a side of his nature that proved him the most
kindly humourist of all.
“Forward with the Fifth”, (Melbourne-1921), A. W. Keown, p. 101-102
"The W half (*)
consists of the Brown's Dip Plots. During the campaign two cemeteries
existed in Brown's Dip (a depression at the rear of of the cemetery(*)) ... and
in 1919 they were moved, along with isolated graves in the area, onto the
plateau.of Lone pine cemetery.",
"Gallipoli- A battelefield Guide", (East Roseville
2000), Phil Taylor & Pam Cupper, p.181
At the end of world war 1, families of fallen Australian soldiers with known graves were given the opportunity to have an epitaph placed on the headstone (against payment of a fee). Families were able to make their own inscription or choose from those suggested by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.