HE m GALLIPOLI

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 7 October 1936, Page 3

HE m GALLIPOLI

HOW ANZAC GRAVES LOOK TO-DAY FLOWERS IN A WILDERNESS STORIES OF DESECRATION UNTRUE (By Air Mail —From a Special Correspondent.) LONDON, 12th September. When King Edward visited the. Empire war cemeteries of Gallipoli this week, he was able to see for himself that stories told of the desecration of graves by the Turks are untrue. In the course of his pilgrimage —the first to the Peninsular by a member of the Royal Family since the epic of 1915—the King saw the studied care With which the graves have been tended amid their wild and desolate surroundings. There are 31 war cemeteries on the Peninsular. Six of them are in the Hellos area on the southern extremity, and 25 stretch in a chain from Suvla Bay to Anzac Beach. Of the 8,968 identified graves, 5,740 are of the United Kingdom’s fallen, 2,773 are Australian and 412 New Zealand.

In addition, the names of 26,883 men who have no known graves are commemorated on memorials, at Helles, Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair, Hill 60, and Twelve Tree Cop.es The construction and maintenance of the cemeteries was one of the hardest tasks which the Imperial War

Graves Commission had to undertake. Sir Fabian Ware, permanent vicechairman of the Commission stated this week that some of the burial grounds are on hillsides, some are in deep gullies and others practically on the beaches which saw the heroic exploits of the Empire forces in the illfated attempt in 1915. The cemeteries in the Helles area are surrounded by a Mohammedan population; those in the north are in practically uninhabited country. The cemeteries are surrounded by walls of stone rubble, and are planted with flowers and shrubs. Little hedges of rosemary flourish valiantly in the climate.

Tall screen walls are built at the upper end of some of the cemeteries. In other cases pylons take the place of the screen wall. Above Cape Helles stands the most impressive memorial of them all. Towering 100 feet into the sky—an everlasting landmark to ships entering the straits—it bears the names of 12,000 men of Great Britain and Ireland and of 200 Australians, who died in this sector. The War Graves Commission has a representative at Chanak, across the Narrows, who controls a corps of Turkish, Greek and Russian gardeners responsible for the upkeep of the cemetery. Oniy recently the Commission’s Chanak representative —Mr T. Millington, an Australian who fought in the Gallipoli campaign— reported that official Turkish visitors to the cemeteries had placed wreaths on the memorials to the memory of their former enemies.