Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"It has been a century since a 24-year-old horse breaker from the NSW Riverina region charged a trench at Lone Pine on the Gallipoli peninsula and vanished. One hundred years later, and also aged 24, I stand over my great-grandfathers grave. The Lone Pine cemetery is hardly a peaceful place on a day like today. It is the 100th anniversary of the battle, stadium seating for 5,000 people is set up and the band is rehearsing its Australian-themed music set. Tourists wander amongst the grass bleached by the harsh summer sun. It is a long way from the vicious hand to hand fighting of the log-covered trenches of 1915. Instead of explosions and rotting corpses, the air is filled with the scent of pine trees, tourists perfumes and bargain ice cream. I am here to see one grave, Hector Donald McDonald. For many Australians who visit Gallipoli, it is the beaches and the stories of the 25th of April landings that captures their imagination.

But the fighting in the ridges, at Lone Pine, Quinns Post, The Nek and Chunuk Bair is what defines the campaign. The August Offensive is where eight out of the nine Victoria Crosses won by Australians during the Gallipoli Campaign were awarded. It is also where huge numbers of men fought and died over a space of parched soil no bigger than a few tennis courts. The August Offensive was the last throw of the dice, the final attempt to break out of the low heights and push on to the rises overlooking the prized Dardenelles. To bolster the Anzac forces fresh recruits were brought in. One of these men was my great-grandfather. Hector McDonald did not even spend a week at Anzac Cove before he was killed. One hundred years after the battle, my search for Hector is easy. He is buried in the Lone Pine cemetery and his headstone not far from the main memorial. But it reads "believed to be buried here". In 1915 his parents were simply told he was missing. That uncertainty led to a series of letters from his father, his local priest and a prominent Wagga businessman to the army, to try and find out what happened to him. These letters echo through the decades, as Hectors father writes: "My wife thinks he is dead".

Hector McDonald was confirmed as being dead months later. How he died in the raging battle for Lone Pine will now never be known." - from ABC online 07 Aug 1915

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-07/the-battle-of-lone-pine-remembering-hector-mcdonald/6679430