GALLIPOLI GRAVES.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1921, Page 7

GALLIPOLI GRAVES.

WORK OF THE COMMISSION. A FITTING RESTING-PLACE. IDENTIFICATON DIFFICULTIES. London, Feb. 7. A Gallipoli correspondent of the Times throws some fresh light on the wort that has been accomplished there bj the Imperial War Graves Commission for the proper preservation of the graven of the fallen. “From November, 1915, to the close of 1918,” he writes, “the terrain where the bodies lay was in enemy occupation and the cemeteries existing at the time of the British evacuation were long neglected. When the Graves Registration Unit came to the Peninsula, they found but little means of tracing scattered graves, and the work occupied eighteen months. In that period also isolated graves were brought in, small detached grounds in accessible places concentrated, and the dead who remained where they ’fell laid to rest with their comrades. So far as was possible, original and identified graves were left undisturbed, but the 70 separate cemeteries were Teduced to 30. Some of these rest-ing-places have strange but memorable names. At Anzac the cemeteries include ‘Shrapnel Valley,’ ‘Lone Pine,’ ‘Baby 700/ ‘Walker’s Ridge,’ ‘New Zealand Outpost,' ‘Johnston’s Jolly/ ‘Plugge’s Plateau,’ ‘Chanak Bahr/ and ‘Quinn’s Post.’ At Suvla there are ‘Lala Baba,’ and ‘Green Hill,’ and at Helles there are ‘V Beach,’ ‘Lancashire Landing,’ ‘Skew Bridge/ and ‘Twelve Tree Copse.’ For all time, passing ships will see on the beaches and hili slopes the memorials to the Empire’s sons who gave up their lies in the splendid months of 1915. MANY GRAVES NOT IDENTIFIED. “A sad feature of the graves is that the great majority must remain those of unknown warriors. Officers and men, with nothing to distinguish- their rank, or establish their identity, lie side by side. There are about 16,000 buried on the Peninsula, and out of this number about 7000 are now identified. In the consecration of Christian graves no attempt was made to distinguish in matters of faith. Two chaplains, one representing the Church of England, and the other Presbyterians and Noncom•formists, held a united srvice, while a Roman Catholic priest conducted his rites for the fallen at the same time. Together, as the salute was fifed and the ‘Last Post,’ sounded, they honored the glorious dead. The Anzac country is too rugged and broken to allow large concentrated cemeteries, and the burial grounds practically mark the landings and the front line. In the main, the men lie where they fell, and no soldier could wish it otherwise. Traces of the ‘occupation’ are seen at Anzac, and the beaches are strewn with wreckage. Water bottles, often riddled with shot, lie amo'ng the rocks and scrub. The preparation of many of the cemetery sites entailed great labor. A clearing had sometimes to be made in thick scrub, and where the cemetery was on the side of a hill, terraces were cut. In the Anzac zone, as at Lone Pine, where there is an intricate system of trenches and tunnels, much work was done in levelling the ground .and making it solid. THE MISSING NORFOLKS. “There are two burial grounds which have exceptional associations. One is that at Chanak in the Suvla district, beside the wood in which the sth Norfolks disappeared during the advance in the August month of the campaign. According to Sir lan Hamilton’s dispatch, ‘a very mysterious thing happened. Two hundred and fifty men and 16 officers, led by Colonel Beauchamp, advanced into the forest, and were never seen again.’ After a long search by the Graves Registration Unit, it was by accident that the bodies of these men were discovered. A private soldier was buying supplies from a farm in what was the enemy territory and foiind a Norfolk badge. The dead were‘then revealed, but only two bodies could be identified. The bleached bones lie now amid surroundings which remind one of English parklands. On the Dardanelles slope of Ghanak Bahr is another plot of consecrated ground, the last restingplace of the heroes who scaled the mountain from the Suvla side in the face of almost overwhelming odds. “All the cemeteries look neat and trim, and are admirably kept. They still need the permanent memorials to replace the wooden ones, and the big Cross of Sacrifice and Stone of Remembrance, and are to be beautified by shrubs and plants under the direction of a horticultural expert. The principal architect of the Imperial War Graves Commission. Sir John Burnet, has completed his designs, and everything is for the work of construction to begin. 1 General Sir Herbert Cox is at present in the Near East arranging for ihe commemoration of the gallant Indian troops who fell on the Peninsula and elsewhere.”