Anzac Day and Lemnos – Honouring the Service Anzac Day Address 2014 Jim Claven, Secretary Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee1 The meaning of Anzac Day Today marks the 99th anniversary of the landings at Anzac Cove. Australians have been marking Anzac Day since 1916. It marks the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers would lose their lives in the nine months of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. 749 Australians died on this day alone, ninety-nine years ago. Of course, Anzac Day today marks our remembrance of all Australians who served in military operations. Today I will talk about an often overlooked but important part of that campaign – the role of the Greek Island of Lemnos. It is a story of thousands of Australian soldiers and nurses who came to Lemnos in 1915 and of the soldiers who remain buried there in its war cemeteries. It’s a story told through hundreds of photographs taken by these young Australians and in the words written in their diaries and letters – a selection of these photographs are reproduced in the booklet on your tables. Lemnos and Anzac Lemnos was the main base of the whole Gallipoli campaign. Its location close to the Dardanelles and its great protected harbour – the largest in the eastern Mediterranean – and the large expanse of the Island made Lemnos the perfect location for the Allies. Offered by the Greek government as an aid to the Allies, the Island was an ideal location to both amass the naval armada and troops for the landings, as well as the myriad of supply depots, training facilities, rest camps and field hospitals needed for the campaign. That’s why it should be no surprise to learn that the Anzacs who landed at Gallipoli on that morning sailed from nearby Lemnos. 1

Jim Claven is a published author and Monash University history graduate, holding a Master of Arts degree from that University. A former government adviser on Veterans Affairs, he is secretary of the Melbournebased Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee. He is currently researching the Anzac connections with Greece across both World Wars and developing associated commemorative travel trails in Greece.

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The first Anzac troops arrived from their training camps in Egypt on 4th March 1915, with the rest arriving throughout April and beyond. As his troopship entered Lemnos’ Mudros Bay, Private A.B. Facey of the 11th Battalionwas “surprised at the size and beauty of the place.” Photographs from the time show the vast array of Allied shipping - some 200 warships and transports of many nations filling Mudros Bay. Lance Corporal Archibald Barwick of the 1st Battalion, remarked on the vast array of shipping – some 200 warships and transports: “When we got round the last headland we could see the harbour was a mass of ships and warships of Great Britain, France and Russia were there, including ‘big Lizzie’ [the dreadnought battleship, HMS Queen Elizabeth]. What a monstrous sight she looked with her big guns pointed straight in front of her.” The famous Australian submarine – the AE2, the first to penetrate the narrows of the Dardanelles – would be based in Mudros’ harbour. Nearly every Anzac – and Allied soldier too - who served at Gallipoli spent time on Lemnos. As Nurse Kath King wrote on her arrival at Mudros in April 1915 - “Australians seemed to be everywhere.” Over eight months in 1915 some 50,000 Australians soldiers came to Lemnos on their way to Gallipoli. They included the famous and the humble – from Colonel John Monash and the future World War Two General Morshead to Captain Albert Jacka, who would win his VC and be paraded on Lemnos. Two Oakleigh diggers who arrived on Lemnos were Sergeant Harry Bick and Private William Withers. Harry was an Oakleigh-born 21 year old who had enlisted into the 11th Battalion. He came through Lemnos on his way to the peninsula in August. The Wither’s family lived in William Street. William was 25 years old when he enlisted in February 1915 into the 22nd Battalion. Sailing to Lemnos aboard the Transport Ship Ulysses he arrived at Gallipoli in September. And given Oakleigh’s Greek community, I should mention that these two diggers were joined by twelve Anzacs of Greek heritage that fought alongside them at Gallipoli. One of these was Private Peter Rados of the 3rd Battalion, a cook in Melbourne who had been born in Athens. As the troops arrived they began preparing for the landings to come. They practised embarking and disembarking from the landing vessels which would take them to the beaches on that morning on the 25th April. While the British and French troops encamped near East Mudros, the Australians and New Zealanders based themselves at a large camp on the opposite side of the bay, next to the little settlement of Sarpi. 2|Page

Further to the west, behind the Anzac camp lay the town of Portianou, where Headquarters of the Allied Military Governor of Lemnos were based. Throughout the campaign the Anzacs would return here for short periods of rest following long periods on the battlefields of the peninsula. On the morning of the 24th April the Anzacs readied for the landings of the next day. The day before the landings was sunny on Lemnos, the Australian soldiers remarked as to how they enjoyed this “real Australian sunshine”. The 1st and 2nd Brigades sailed for the Bay of Bournia on Lemnos’ northern shore to anchor until their departure in the early hours of the 25th. Just before dusk on 24th they would watch as their comrades in the 3rd Brigade sailed past them after leaving Mudros earlier that day, led by warships. As the Australian’s departed for Gallipoli, it was reported that they could be distinguished from other Allied troops by their “wallaby call”. They would be followed by the rest of the Australian troops anchored at Bournia. After waiting off nearby Imbros and Tenedos, the first Australians would make their landings at Anzac Cove at 4.30am on Sunday, 25th April. On the Island the Anzacs were aided by the local Greek community. Greek shops, bakers, farmers and butchers sold food and supplies to the Australians. There was a great trade in donkeys for vital transport on the peninsula – with Simpson’s famous donkey “Murphy” having been purchased here. Amazingly, local Greeks even arrived on the landing beaches at Gallipoli only a few days after the landings as water carriers, operating canteens, ferrying supplies to shore in small craft, building jetties, unloading stores, as cooks, carrying ammunition to the trenches (often young boys) and some for a while engaged in intelligence work – all of these activities often taking place under shell-fire. And while Greece was neutral during 1915, many Greeks volunteered to help the Anzacs and the Allied campaign. We all know of the attack on Lone Pine and the charge of the Light Horse at the Nek in August. But not many are aware that hundreds of Greek volunteers took part in an equally murderous landing further up the coast to divert the attention of the Ottoman forces from the Allied offensive at Anzac. The Anzacs initial experience of Lemnos had been one of preparation for the landings. But as the battles raged at Gallipoli, Lemnos was being transformed into an Allied camp – a place where the soldiers would return regularly for periods of rest and recreation, as well as for medical care – and for some as a place of final rest in its cemeteries. One of the most important roles that Lemnos played was as a medical base.

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The Australian field hospitals were located to the western side of the bay, near the Anzac Rest Camp at Sarpi. By August 1915, the two principal Australian field hospitals - the 3rd Australian General Hospital and 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital - would be established in August on the long peninsula opposite the camp, known as the Turks Head Peninsula. The establishment of these hospitals would bring 130 Australian nurses to this theatre of war – the first such deployment of an Australian nursing unit. And this brought a new aspect to the Gallipoli story – the role of the Lemnos nurses. The initial experience of the nurses – and their wounded patients – was a desperate one. The Gallipoli campaign was fraught with disorganisation and a lack of planning. Lacking much of their medical equipment and accommodated in tents, they performed their duties through summer heat and dust and winter storms – these even blowing down their tents. Despite these conditions, the nurses were soon coping with an overwhelming number of casualties from the renewed August offensive on the peninsula. The nurses of the 3 rd AGH came ashore on the 8th August and before breakfast on the 9th they were caring for some 200 wounded and sick soldiers. Within days they were treating nearly 800 casualties. In the two months to October, the field hospitals on Lemnos catered for some 37,000 wounded and 57,000 sick soldiers. Matron Grace Wilson wrote of the conditions on Lemnos in her diary as being “too awful for words”. Nurse Rachel Pratt wrote of these early days at the 3rd AGH. The lack of equipment and the terrible lack of water meant that the wounded soldiers’ dressings couldn’t be properly cleaned. It was “a state of chaos” as the wounded began to arrive. Bedding and dressings were improvised as the nurses greeted the young soldiers who only a week before had travelled with the nurses from Australia to Lemnos and Gallipoli. The situation is reflected in the words a digger named Geoffrey Morlet who wrote on 21 st September of his dismay at seeing the shattered remnants of the Australians who had trained so eagerly in Egpyt only months before: “I was told that the whole 1st division was resting in a camp on Lemnos, on the other side of a hill. I set out to find it, filled with hope. After wading through the lagoon a quarter of a mile wide (opposite today’s Nea Koutali), I came across the 1st Australian division camp! I could hardly believe it!” “Here in this straggling little collection of tents and marquees were the shattered remnants of that huge Mena Camp! That proud martial, display that was the pride of Australia, whom thousands visited and admired a year ago at Broadmeadows. … This little quiet camp was all that remained, after six months’ exposure to the fury of the Turks and the ravages of disease!” 4|Page

As Geoffrey recounts, the wounds of war would compete with terrible illnesses that struck the Anzacs. The lack of sanitation on the peninsula saw thousands of soldiers debilitated by dysentery. Along with typhoid and pneumonia, these would become the main killers of the Anzacs. And as the sick diggers arrived on Lemnos, they brought these infectious illnesses with them. Many nurses became sick. Dysentery was so prevalent on the Lemnos that Matron Wilson and the nurses referred to it as “Lemnitis”. Yet medical and living conditions on the Island would gradually improve. And despite all that they had to contend with, the Australian field hospitals and their nurses had a death rate of a mere 2.5%. It should be noted that the Anzacs brought much needed medical care to the local Islanders, with the field hospitals, dental facilities and x-rays. One Australian nurse - Anne Donnell even gave midwifery classes to the Islands traditional midwives, with the aid of a local English-speaking priest. The dedication of Australia’s nurses under the conditions they faced on Lemnos is reflected in the assessment of Lieutenant General Richard Fetherston, the Australian Army’s DirectorGeneral of Medical Services: “I believe that the Hospital would have collapsed without the nurses. They all worked like demons and were led and guided by Miss Wilson …” As the campaign came to an end and the peninsula was evacuated, the Anzacs would return to Lemnos. Here they would enjoy their first campaign Christmas, with Red Cross parcels from home. But as they left Lemnos in January 1916, 148 diggers would remain on the Island in its two Commonwealth Military Cemeteries –at East Mudros and at Portianou - never to return to their homes and loved ones in Australia. They lie with their fellow 76 Anzacs from New Zealand. One of those was Oakleigh’s Private Withers. Like many diggers he became ill within days of his arrival on the peninsula. Suffering from diphtheria and pneumonia, he died at the 1st Australian Stationary Hospital on Lemnos on 15th September - barely a week after he had arrived. He was buried at East Mudros. These graves on Lemnos contain what are probably the first and last Australians to die associated with the campaign. On 7th March 1915 - 7 weeks before the landings at Gallipoli - Private Alexander Jones of the 9th Infantry Battalion was buried at East Mudros Military Cemetery, having succumbed to an overdose of bronchial medication. 5|Page

Along with William and Alexander lie two of the last Australians to be buried on Lemnos. These are two Victorians who served aboard the Royal Australian Navy’s Australian-built battle cruiser, HMAS Brisbane. The battleship had arrived in Lemnos’ Mudros Bay in November 1918. The northern Aegean winter saw two of its sailors succumb to pneumonia. Both 20 year old Stoker John Godier and 25 year old Able Seaman Thomas Chitts died on 2 nd December 1918 - only a few weeks after the armistice with the Ottoman Empire was signed in Mudros Bay. Lemnos – A Place of Refuge So for nearly eleven months, thousands of Anzac soldiers and nurses made Lemnos their home for shorter or longer periods. Looking at the photographs and reading the letters and diaries of the Anzacs tells us what Lemnos meant to these young Australians, far from home and experiencing the horrors of war. Lemnos was a refuge and a sort of return to a temporary normalcy for these men and women. As well as images of war, they also reveal tender moments of happiness and respite, even a wedding and the odd game of football, or hiring a donkey to travel over the island, even to climb the great Mt Ilias to view the great Allied armada below – all under the long shadow of the ever present fighting. As they toured across the island enjoying some free time, the soldiers and nurses interacted socially with their new Lemnian neighbours. They visited the local shops for some fresh food, such as meat, mandarins and nuts. They would relax in the streets and shops of the island’s towns and villages, sitting in the cafes and tavernas enjoying a drink and conversation with the locals. Sgt Fred Garrett of the 3rd Australian Light Horse Regiment wrote [of Portianou]: “Greek cafes with gorgeous decorations. Houses are solidly built and all two story. Where convenient there is a big vine trained around the cottage. All the yards I saw were paved with slabs and surrounded with high stone walls. … Away back on the top of a high hill and perched on the very peak is a solitary big building white and which is a monastery.” Nurse Olive Haynes, a nurse at No. 2 Australian General Hospital on Lemnos, wrote [of her visit to Kontias] on the 9th January 1916: “… We’ve had such nice weather lately – we have been awfully lucky. The other afternoon Sister Daw and I walked to Kontias, such a pretty little port over the other side. We bought mandarins and nuts and ate them in a shop. The (local) [Greek] kids gathered round saying ‘Australia very good, very nice. Turco finish’.” 6|Page

Many made their way to the ancient mineral springs at Therma of the Island for a reviving hot bath. Signaller, A.H.Edmonds wrote of these springs: “Here the troops indulged in the luxury of a hot bath – the first, for most of us, since leaving our native land. The springs gush from the hillsides near the bottom of the valley, over which has been built the bath-house. The bathroom is about 12 feet square and dimly lighted by a perforation in the roof, which is domed. The floor is paved with marble slabs, on to which the hot water splashes from marble basins set in the walls.” Lieutenant Colonel Aubrey Herbert wrote of his visit to Therma and Myrina (then referred to as Castro): “Drove across the island to Castro. There was a delightful spring half a mile from Castro and a café [kept by a Greek]... Great fig-trees and gardens …Castro is beautiful, with balconies over the narrow streets … and shady gardens. I bathed in a transparent sea, facing Athos, which was gleaming like a diamond.” One writes of the local villagers performing their national dance and singing anthems, of the Australians joining in with a concertina. Some visited the churches of the Island – fascinated with the unfamiliar orthodox services, recording the rich icons, gorgeous robes of the priests and the air infused with incense. Australian Signaller, N.K. Harvey found the Orthodox Church services “interesting and novel to the Australians”: “Holy week and Easter occurred during our stay on the island, and our men were interested in how this season was observed by the Greeks. There was an amount of bell-ringing in the churches, and for a day or two the bells never seemed to stop. On Easter Day there were innumerable gifts of dyed Easter eggs from the villagers to our men.” After a visit to Therma on 27th December accompanied by some Australian officers, Nurse Olive Haynes and her friends visited East Mudros, walking through the village, having coffee and lunch in a “little Greek shop”. After mandarins and Christmas pudding, she visited the large Orthodox Church in the village - Agios Evanglismos - lighting a candle and saying a prayer. She writes that then they went to the top of the Church for a great view of the harbour and its battleships. The classical education of some of these Anzacs led them to comment on the Ancient history of the land on which they now walked. For Lemnos is one of the oldest settlements in Greece, its longevity earning it a place in the writings of Homer and the stories of Jason and the Argonauts.

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Young Signaller A.H. Edmonds recalled the Island’s connection to Haephaestus, the god of metallurgy, and Jason and the Argonauts, wondering whether his Anzac colleagues were aware of “the sanctity of the classical ground on which they trod”. Australian nurses listened to passages from Homer’s Illiad over dinner, reminding them of other warriors who had made their way to Asia Minor coast from Lemnos. And Lieutenant Colonel Audrey Herbert wrote of the stretching shadow of distant Mount Athos at sunset “as Homer said it did”. Many too recorded their love of the natural environment, of the light and the harbour waters and the amazing mountain views. When the Anzacs arrived in 1915, they found a beautiful island in the northern Aegean Sea. On a clear day, from its shores they could see Samothrace, the Asia Minor coast and to the north the mysterious Mount Athos. This is for me is one of the most fascinating aspects of the whole Lemnos experience of these first Australian “tourists” in Greece. For almost all of these Australians it was their first experience of Greece, and for many there first experience overseas. As they left the Island and Gallipoli, many reflected on their experience on Lemnos. Adelaide nurse Anne Donnell of the 3rd Australian General Hospital wrote poignantly on leaving Lemnos on 20th January 1916: “We have just seen the last of Lemnos. Of course, we are glad, yet there are many things we will miss; the unconventional freedom and the unique experiences we had there. The glorious colourings of the sky, the watching of the beautiful Star of Bethlehem at night, and the harbour and the hills; but when we think of the cold, the wind, and dust, we are thankful we are not going to spend the winter there ... Goodbye Lemnos. We take many happy memories of you. I would not have liked to miss you ...” Anne’s memory would be reflected in others. Like Private Ernie Hill. A 23 year old cabinet maker from Ballarat when he joined the 14th Battalion, he served at Gallipoli with Lance Corporal Albert Jacka (the first VC winner) and spent a number of weeks on Lemnos recuperating and resting. Surviving the war, Ernie would return to Australia and successfully fight to have a new soldier settlement near Shepparton named Lemnos. And it remains to this day. Lemnos Now Visiting the Island today, armed with these writings and photographs from long ago, you can feel like you are walking in the footsteps of our Anzac forebears. The villages and towns they walked in are still there. The cafes and tavernas remain. The churches they visited can be seen. The baths of Therma can still be visited – although much renovated from those days in 1915. 8|Page

And you can walk along Anzac Street to the digger’s graves at the two well-kept Commonwealth Military Cemeteries on the Island, reading the names of the fallen and contemplating what personal stories lay behind them. By the harbour-side at East Mudros – the site of much activity 99 years ago – there is a memorial erected by Lemnians who had made their home in Australia – honouring the Anzacs who came to Lemnos in 1915. It is fitting that every April Lemnos holds an Anzac commemorative service. It is testimony to the remembrance of Lemnos’ current inhabitants that they continue to honour the memory of all those young Anzacs who came to their island all those years ago. And honour the support of their forebears for these young soldiers who had had to face the horrors of war. How comforting it would be to the Australian relatives of these soldiers to know that all the way around the world, on this northern Aegean island, that their sacrifice is remembered and commemorated. And how comforting to Lemnos to know that all the way back in Australia, in the archives of the Australian War Memorial, lie this story of Lemnos – of its people and their lives, their churches and schools, their mountains, harbours and sunsets. Our Committee Our Committee has been working – in Australia and in Greece - to ensure that Lemnos’ connection to Australia’s Anzac story is not forgotten and is given due recognition as we approach the Centenary of Anzac in 2015. We have many projects underway – including enhancing the Island’s Anzac trail and helping the local authorities with a new museum to be built on Lemnos. We are also making headway in ensuring that the official Australian Naval flotilla which will visit Anzac Cove in 2015 will first rest in Mudros harbour – as the Anzacs did in 1915. But our most important project is our work to commemorate the Lemnos’ Anzac story in Australia – through the erection of a major new memorial in Albert Park. This will feature the role of Australia’s nurses, with two statues – a nurse caring for a sick digger. We have commissioned Australia’s pre-eminent commemorative sculptor – Peter Corlett OAM – to design and create this memorial. Port Philip Council is supporting the project and fundraising is well underway. You all have copies of our explanatory prospectus. You can help us in a small way by purchasing one of our $5 Lemnos Gallipoli memorial badges – proceeds of which go to erecting our memorial and funding a commemorative publication. 9|Page

Yet much needs to be done – both in Australia and in Greece – to realise our vision to restore the Anzac story on Lemnos to its rightful place. Conclusion In re-telling the Lemnos’ Anzac story, we are also remembering the links between Australia and Greece – one that has endured and grown with the waves of immigration – many from this island. The Gallipoli campaign had brought Australians to Greece for the first time. 17,000 Australian soldiers and nurses (along with 17,000 New Zealanders) would return in the Second World War to defend Greece alongside our Greek allies. The hospitality shown by the Lemnians to Australians in 1915 would be echoed in the help given to the hundreds of Australian diggers on the run after the fall of Greece by thousands of Greeks despite mortal risk to themselves. Post-war migration would bring Greeks to Australia to build a new life in the land of the diggers. The interaction between Australians and Greeks – that to a major extent began on Lemnos – has grown with the years and still plays a major part of Australian and Greek culture. And what better place in Australia than Oakleigh to commemorate the connection between Lemnos and Anzac. Thank you. Lest we forget.

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