GALLIPOLI TO-DAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2582, 19 May 1923, Page 1

GALLIPOLI TO-DAY.

FIVE CENTURIES COMPLETED.

Thorp arc rumours that the forces of Great Britain will be withdrawing from the Near East in the not distant future. At present, however, the Gallipoli Peninsula is an armed camp. For six years the old battlegrounds were visited only by the Graves Registration officials and the staff of the Imperial War Graves Commission. Suddenly the war clouds gathered again in the Near East and the quiet hillsides resounded once more to the tramp of armies and the hammers and picks of the khaki working parties. Over on the Asiatic side miles and miles of trenches were constructed, and there the British troops are still keeping guard while the Turks remain in position beyond. Guns command forty miles of the sea front. On Gallipoli 15,000 troops are quartered. Nissen huts have sprung up across the plain from Kelia, and every man is quartered under a roof. Nothing was left to chance. Light railways were thrown out in all directions and a railway was run across from Kelia to Anzac, for it was from this shore supplies would have been brought in case of hostilities. Lieutenant A. W. Mildenhall. of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces, Chief Clerk of Works for the Imperial Graves Commission on the Peninsula, has been in England, and it is his opinion that the people of Great Britain never realised how near to war we were last autumn. When the Turks gained their victory over the Greeks all the Greeks on the Peninsula lied, and so the work on the cemeteries were sus-pended-for a time. Italians and Russians were brought in and these are now engaged by the cemetery contractors and by the Army. Five of the cemeteries are completed except for the headstones. These are Embarkation Pier, New Zealand No. 2 Outpost, No. 2 Outpost. Canterbury, and 7th Field Ambulance. The headstones are being made and inscribed in England and will be sent „ut all ready to place on the graves. An expert gardener from Kew is superintending the planting. Grass within the walled area of these completed cemeteries is in good growth, and the 30ft. belts of shrubs have been planted. Australian and New Zealand shrubs are being planted, and the Australian gum trees, of which there are seventy-two varieties, is being extensively used.

HOW THE STONE IS TRANSPORTED. The contractors (Sir Pain Galwaj Brown Ltd) have erected a rope line from Ocean Bench to Baby 700, and from there on to Lone Pine. By (his means they are able to convey their -tone (brought by ship from Olgardere, about ten miles from Kelia) right on to the sites of the cemeteries at Walker’s Ridge, the Nek. Lone Pine, Johnson’s Jolly, Steel and Courtenay. Quinn’s Post, mid to the 4th Battalion cemetery. The same contractors will erect the New Zealand Battle Memorial at Chuiiuk Bair, but pending a satisfactory >eft lenient with the Turks the erection of this has been postponed. Work on two cemeteries at Mudros nvo at Constantinople, and one at Syria is now being proceeded with. Na I lira II v, a certain amount of apprehension is felt by the Graves Commission at the approaching ev-

<»r the British troops. They are Imping for tin* host, however. After tin* Crimean War tlu* Turks gave the Tlaidar i’aslm Cemetery ut Constantinople t" the British, un.l this has heon respe.-te.l < 1 urinii - tlu* intervening half a oeul„rv crosses arc erect Oil there, however, and whether the Christian -Muled mi (tallipoli will act as a provocation to the Turks is yet to he proved. \\ Lone Bine a special nisenption applicable to the unknown dead of both New Zealand and Austialian soldiers is to he placed oni he central memorial. Sir James Allen •tml Sir Joseph Cook have been in consultation over this and their sugoestions have been submitted to Mr Kudyurd Kipling for approval or further suggestions.