Lone Pine Memorial, Anzac, Gallipoli

The importance of the Lone Pine area prompted the Allies to mount, on 6th August, a major attack on these positions. At 1730 hours the New South Welshmen of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions charged across 60 metres of open ground (now covered by the graves in the cemetery) to reach the Turkish trenches which were in the area now occupied by the Australian Memorial. The Turks had covered their trenches with pine logs to reduce casualties from Allied shelling.

Entry to these trenches for the Australians was not easy, but eventually they found their way down into a labyrinth of dark, dank and dangerous pits. The Australian trenches, which are still visible in the area to the right beyond the cemetery, had been well prepared for the attack with tunnels dug out into No Man's-Land in order to minimise exposure to Turkish fire during the action.

In five days of bloody fighting the Australians managed to penetrate most of the Turkish trench system and hold the area against valiant, but hopeless, Turkish counterattacks. Within these trenches occurred some of the fiercest fighting of World War I, with men often reduced to using bayonets and bare fists. The combat was so ferocious that seven Victoria Crosses were won by Australians in this small area (only two other VCs were awarded to Australians during the Gallipoli Campaign and one to a New Zealander).

At the end of the five days both sides were exhausted. The Australians had lost 2,273 men killed whilst the Turks, who did not always keep accurate casualty records, are believed to have lost over 4,000 dead. All this in an area of two hectares. © This text is taken from "Gallipoli Plaques, A Guide to the Anzac Battlefield", by R.J.Bastiaan.

Visiting Information:	Wheelchair access to the cemetery is possible via the main entrance. For further information regarding wheelchair access, please contact our Enquiries Section on 01628 507200.
Location Information:	The Lone Pine Memorial is at the east end of Lone Pine Cemetery, which stands on the plateau at the top of Victoria Gully, and is located on the road from Gaba Tepe to Chunuk Bair.
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.
No. of Identified Casualties:	4,932