Anzac Day

[erilyn]

The honoured graves beneath the crest
Of Gabe Tepe hill,
May hold our bravest and our best,
But we have brave men still.

Banjo Paterson, "We're All Australians Now"

Gaba Tepe was a Turkish position during the Gallipoli campaign

Someday, I want to travel to Turkey, not only to visit a beautiful country, but to pay my respects at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli.

Travelling to World War 1 memorials in the Somme region in 2002 with my sister was incredibly moving. Visiting places like Le Halme, Poiziers and Vimy Ridge that I've read so much about. My great-grandfather died of wounds received there, as well as suffering immense psychological damage.

I've posted this before, but I took this picture in the Commonwealth cemetery at Poiziers. If it isn't clear, the inscription is "Two Australian Soldiers of the Great War...Known Unto God". So many of the graves were marked in a similar way.

Comments

[boomingvoice.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything to say, but I just wanted to comment and say I appreciated this post. Anonymous engravings are such sad curious things. Though it was ages ago, I'm sitting here worrying about the family.

[erilyn.livejournal.com]

You look at the graves with no names, and the thousands of names with no known graves on the memorials, and it's such an odd feeling knowing that so many of them have no real graves at all, known or unknown. The sheer wastage of life becomes so much realer.