GALLIPOLI GRAVES

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160723, 9 August 1920, Page 5

GALLIPOLI GRAVES

WORE NEARING COMPLETION,. LONDON, July 23. Colonel C. Hughes, Officer in Charge of the Graves on Gallipoli, interviewed by a representative of the Sun, said that burials had been completed at Gallipoli. The bodies were gathered in small cemeteries, each of which would bo walled and ringed by Australian and Now Zealand trees, which are now flourishing in a nursery. Each grave would be slabbed in the ancient English style. There would be no standing headstones, because the peasantry were always armed, and liable to take shots at any prominent white object. TheY.M.C.A. intends to erect a hostel at the Straits, either at Eelia or Kilid Bahr, opposite Chanak, which is only 1350 yards across the Straits, and at which seaport large vesels call. From there visitors can ferry over and take a motor on a good road to Anzac Cove, which is only 20 minutes’ run. The Y.M.C.A. has been greatly assisted by Lady Doughty Wylie, whose husband was killed at Helles in the landing. He was formerly a diplomat in Turkey and Anatolia. His widow is living at Constantinople at present. She speaks Turkish fluently, and is on popular terms at Eelia headquarters. Australians and New Zealanders, numbering 17, all men who enlisted in 1914 and 1915, and some who enlisted after the landing, and were formerly of the First Brigade; became impatient and visited a village, whence armed horesmen had decamped. They told the headman that they came on a friendly mission, but if he looked for trouble he would get it in the neck. This was explained through the Greeks, and Colonel Hughes agreed to place flags on the motors, whereupon the Turks praised the Australian flag as being both English and Turkish, the latter because of the stars. Working parties a-re sometimes fired on, but latterly the villagers have been warned, and sentries ate posted. Headquarters are protected by wire crossing the mam read towards the Porte, and machine-gunners are posted in armed motor launches. Trouble always follows the visits of Turkish Nationalists’ officers from Asia and Thrace.