GALLIPOLI

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1919, Page 5

GALLIPOLI

INFLUENZA HAS SUBSIDED.

CARE OP THE GRAVES* SUGGESTED NATIONAL ANZAC MEMORIAL. Received Jan- 12, 5.5 pm London, Jan. 9. Mr.' Pcacoek, special correspondent, telegraphing from Chaaak, says that the influenza epidemic affected 110 New Zealanders, and that one officer and ten men died. Tho outbreak has now subsided and the weather improved Col. Richardson has reoovered. Tho Australian Red Cross equipment saved many lives.

The digging up of graves has not l)een extensive in a defined area, but there are many skeletons in the advanced lines of no man's land and shallow graves have been washed out. Some have been dug up, probably Iby road gangs, prowlers, or animals. In many of the trenches are bodies in small groups. The graves have been molested, and it is impossible to identify the majority of those buried after tho preat August slaughter. Colonel Findlay, of the Canterbury Mounteds, and his working party with local knowledge, are camped at Anzac, and are tidying the cemeteries and identifying and registering tho known scattered graves. The Imperial Graves Registration has a unit of SO,OOO records, but mariv of these arn inaccurate, COOO having been buried at sea.

Captain Bingwitber, a New Zealand representative, interviewed, states that the graves are not so bad as was thought. He hag been instructed to survey the whole of the peninsula and locate cometeries and outlying graver, and then submit the results separately to the London Graves Commission and the Australian and Hew Zealand authorities.

Mr Peacock thinks the system is not sufficiently definite for the Anzac graves, and suggests that direet authority be given to the Australasian officers on the spot to develop a national Anzac memorial scheme and to bury the bodies under national monuments bearing all the names of the killed; also that some members of each Gallipoli unit should be sent to supply local knowledge and identification. The whole of the Anzac urea should be made sacred, inviolable, and protected by a responsible body, in the interests of national education, patriotism, and the future benerations.— United Service- . ,