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The Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee was formed in Melbourne to ensure the Anzac connection to the Aegean island of Lemnos is commemorated. A memorial was erected on August 2015 in Albert Park, Melbourne as part of the Anzac Centenary and was designed and created by one of Australia’s best known commemorative sculptors, Peter Corlett, OAM.
It features the figures of a nurse, standing protectively over a sick or wounded soldier. The statues stand and rest on the stone plinth, the colour of the stone of Lemnos’ ancient amphitheatre at Hepheastia, with the words Gallipoli and Lemnos as well as the names of many of the villages visited by the Anzacs in 1915. The Memorial is located near Port Melbourne’s famous piers from which Australia’s diggers and nurses departed during the First World War. It has been gifted to the City of Port Philip for their care and on-going maintenance. The Committee will continue to hold commemorative services at the Memorial in future years.
The Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial was unveiled on the 8th August 2015 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Australian nurses’ arrival on Lemnos on the 8th August 1915. This year is the third anniversary of this unveiling. The Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee holds an annual commemorative service at the memorial to commemorate and raise awareness of the role of Lemnos in Australia’s Anzac story, the nurses and diggers who served there and those who are buried there, and the support of the Lemnians and other Hellenes for the Anzacs including those from or that have a connection to the City of Port Phillip area.
The Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial was the first commemorative memorial dedicated to honouring the role of Lemnos in the Gallipoli Campaign to be erected outside of Lemnos in Greece. It was erected by the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee, with the support of all levels of government, trade unions, community organizations and individuals, from across Melbourne’s Hellenic community and beyond. |
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LEMNOS GALLIPOLI
1915
2015
(Story Board)
The Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial
This memorial commemorates the role of the Greek Island of Lemnos in Australia’s ANZAC story and
is dedicated to the Australian nurses and soldiers who served there during the Gallipoli campaign in
1915, to the 148 Australian soldiers who remain buried there and to the local Lemnian community
who supported them.
Lemnos and ANZAC
Situated in the northern Aegean only 80 kilometres from the Dardanelles, Lemnos was offered by
Greece as the advanced base for the Gallipoli campaign. Its great Mudros Bay sheltered the Allies’
200 ships as they assembled for the landings on 25 April 1915.
A place of rest and care
The Anzac Rest Camp at Sarpi provided respite for Anzac soldiers from the Gallipoli battlefields,
including General John Monash and the future Mayor of St Kilda, Corporal Albert Jacka, VC. The 3rd
Australian General and the 2nd Australian Stationary Hospitals, staffed by 130 Australian nurses, were
located on Lemnos’ Turks Head peninsula. The nurses arrived on 8 August 1915, including Sister
Clarice Jessie Daley. She served under Matron Grace Wilson - the Alfred Hospital’s Matron after the
war. Almost every one of the 50,000 Australian diggers who served at Gallipoli received medical care
or rest on Lemnos. Many of those who arrived ill and wounded recovered with the care of Australia’s
nurses, as did St Kilda’s Captain Harold Burke.
Lemnians and ANZACs
Despite their own hardships, the people of Lemnos welcomed the diggers and nurses into their
homes, churches and schools. The Australians enjoyed this hospitality, tasting new foods, and taking
donkey rides to the ancient hot springs at Therma. The famous John Simpson’s donkey was from
Lemnos. In October 1915, West Mudros was the location for the marriage of Sergeant Ernest
Lawrence and Sister Clarice Jessie Daley, who would return to live in Elwood after the war. The
villages visited by the Australians and the villagers who helped them are commemorated on the plinth
of the memorial.
Those that remain
148 Australians remain in Lemnos’ military cemeteries at East Mudros and Portianos. Among the
diggers from the Port Phillip area who served at Gallipoli, local Albert Park electrician Corporal George
Finlay Knight, St Kilda-born Private Cyril Thomas Leishman and South Melbourne-born Driver Ralph
Berryman all lie buried on Lemnos, along with Second Lieutenant Alfred Jackson, and Privates Francis
Carter and Roy Woolcock who all departed from Port Melbourne aboard the HMAT Orvieto on 21
October 1914 as part of the first convoy of troops.
Lest we forget |
