Lemnos Day Tours - 15-17th April - Book Now

Fro all those lucky enough to be travelling to Lemnos for their Centenary of Anzac services in April, join me on a tour of Lemnos' Anzac sites and more.
These day tours are being offered in conjunction with Lemnos' Petrides Travel.
The Tours will operate on 15th, 16th and 17th April - numbers permitting - and will cost 50 Euro per head.

What you will experience
Each tour includes visits to East Mudros and Portinas Military Cemeteries, the Australian Hospitals sites on the Turks Head peninsula and the Sarpi Rest Camp. Participants will also be able to see where the Anzac soldiers and nurses enjoyed local Lemnian hospitality - whether at the Therma hot springs, the kafenion of Portianou or the restaurants of Myrina's harbour front - as well as the view from Lemnos' Profitis Illias, as the Anzacs did.
We will also tour some of Lemnos' ancient sites - and hear some of the Classical myths and legends that fascinated the Anzacs.
All the while listening to the experiences of the Anzacs in 1915.

Tour Leader
As a trained historian and one who has researched Lemnos Anzac trail for the past 5 years, I urge you to join with me in a Centenary Tour of Lemnos.
View and download the Lemnos Day Tour Brochure by clicking here.
Book Now
Contact Petrides Travel and Car Hire SA to book your place now:.
Visit our offices at 118 Karatza Street, Myrina, 814 00 Lemnos
 Email - petrides@otenet.gr
 Call - +30 22540 22039; +30 22540 24787; +30 694 7601516

Jim Claven
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee

Lemnos Gallipoli Photo Exhibition A Success - Thank You!

A big thank you from all on our Committee to those who were able to come along and enjoy our unique photographic exhibition last night.
As you know we have curated 40 of the what we believe are the most signification photographs taken by Anzac's (and some other Allied) soldiers on Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign.
The event was well attended and everyone enjoyed the event.
A number of dignatories attended the event including the Consul-General of Greece, Ms Christina Simantiraki, the Hon John Pandazopoulos (former MP and Victorian Minister, President of the World Inter-Parliamentary Union) and Clr Phillip Vlahogiannis, Mayor of the City of Yarra.

Speeches

The Exhibition was opened by the Consul-General of Greece, Ms Christina Simantiraki.
Our President, Lee Tarlamis, JP, addressed the crowd explaining the role of our Committee and how the funds raised are assisting the realization of our two main projects - the Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial in Albert and our proposed major commemorative historical publication, which will feature many of the Lemnos Gallipoli photographs and their publication for the first time.

Our President, Mr Lee Tarlamis, JP. Photograph Jim Claven 2015

Ms Malama Varvara, President of the Lemnian Community of Victoria, and Mr Paul Mavroudis OAM, President of the Thessaloniki Association "White Tower", both made introductory addresses.

Ms Malama Varvara, President of the Lemnian Community of Victoria, with Mr and Mrs Nick and Sophia Kambouris. Photograph Jim Claven 2015

As curator of the exhibition, I made an address, explaining how the selection of the photographs and placing them in the story of Lemnos and Gallipoli, marrying some of them with the words of the Anzac soldiers and nurses themselves. For those who unfortunately couldn't attend or anyone would like a copy of my address, please click here.

I hold forth on the Lemnos and Anzac link and the archive of photographs. Photograph Cait Ellis 2015

 George Petrou Original Paintings
A feature of the evening was the exhibition of a number of original paintings by Melbourne artist and graphic designer, Mr George Petrou. George has created these stunning artworks, drawing on his interpretation of the Lemnos Anzac archive. They feature some of the famous diggers and nurses who walked on Lemnos, as well as village scenes.
These paintings are for sale - which will further contribute to the Lemnos Gallipoli Committee's commemorative projects.
If you are interested in purchasing one of these original paintings please contact me at jimclaven@yahoo.com.au

Lance Corporal Albert Jacka, VC, on Lemnos 1915, by George Petrou. 2015

Matron Grace Wilson on Lemnos, 1915, by George Petrou. 2015

Presentations
One of the features of the night was the presence of a number of people whose relatives served in Lemnos or Salonika during WW1.
Stephen and Sandra Lee -whose relative Nurse Mary McIlroy - served on Lemnos in 1915. A relative of Matron Grace Wilson was also in attendance.

Stephen and Sandra Lee, me, Gil Easton and his daughter Glynis, Cait Ellis and Jenne Perlstein. Photograph Vicky Kyritsis 2015

 Rat of Tobruk, Mr Gil Easton, was also able to attend the event, along with his daughter Glynis. Gil's mother served with the other 350 Australian nurses on the Salonika front in WW1. Mr Paul Mavroudis OAM made a special presentation to Gil in recognition of the service of his mother - Nurse Edith Jeremiah (nee Easton).

Mr Gil Easton, son of Salonika Nurse Edith Jeremiah, accepts the award from Mr Paul Mavroudis, OAM, on behalf of the Thessaloniki Association. Photograph Cait Ellis, 2015.

Royal Red Cross medal, similar to the one awarded to Matron Grace Wilson and many other nurses who served in WW1. Thanks to Arlene Bennett of the Melbourne Nurses Memorial Centre for sharing this treasured item with us on the night.

A Gift to Posterity
One of the amazing aspects of the centenary is that new archival material is being discovered as relatives connect to the Anzac story. This is particularly poignant for the Lemnos story given the lack of attention the service of Anzac's here has received over recent years.
Both Stephen and Gil's family took the opportunity to announce their decision to donate their perosnal family photographs - Nurse McIlroy's of Lemnos and beyond in WW1 and Gil's photographs of his WW2 service - to the State Library of Victoria.
These donations will ensure that the service of Australians - in Greece and beyond - will be remembered in the photographs taken by the Anzac's themselves. Thank you to the Easton and Lee families.
Thank You's
Thanks to Malama Varvra and the Ladies Committee of the Lemnian Community of Victoria for cooking some excellent food.
Thanks to George Iliopoulos, Fix Beer and Loux Soft Drinks for their assistance with the drinks tonight.
Thanks to Harry Gavnoudia for donating the wine.
And thanks to Paul Mavroudis OAM and the Thessaloniki Association for inviting us into their community hall for this important night.
Thanks to Vicky Kyritsis, John Pandazopoulos, Cait Ellis and Anne Bendouli for sharing their photographs with us.
And on behalf of the Committee, thank you all for attending.
Exhibition
The exhibition will travel to various other locations over coming months, including the City of Yarra. However it will remain at the Thessaloniki Association community hall for a number of weeks. If you would like to view it during that time, please contact Mr Paul Mavroudis on via email: paulmav@tpg.com.au
Jim Claven 
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee
Below more photographs from the event:

Lemnos and the Anzacs 1915 - Photo Exhibition - URGENT REMINDER

We will be launching our unique photographic exhibition - along with original paintings on the Lemnos and Azanc theme by Melbourne artisit George Petrou - tomorrow at 6pm Sunday 22nd March evening at the Thessaloniki Community Hall, 439 High Street Northcote.

One of our beautiful images - taken by AW Savage of the 3rd Australian General Hospital in 1915 on Lemnos. Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

The Exhibition features 40 of the most impressive photographs from the hundreds takne on Lemnos in 1915 by the soldeirs and nurses who served there. They tell the story of Anzac's Hellenic Heart.
Tickets are $70 - all proceeds going to support the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee's Memorial projects.
Refreshments including finger food - including recipes from Lemnos - and drinks will be provided.
This will be a great event - the Consul of Greece,Ms Christina Simantiraki, will be in attendance, along with the Hon Bruce Atkinson MLC, President of the Victoria Legislative Council - and many other dignitaries.
If you haven't already booked, please book your ticket now rather than be disappointed.
Book Now
Tickets are limited and selling fast.
Please contact Lee Tarlamis via lee.tarlamis@hotmail.com or on 0411 553 009

Melbourne commemorative artist, George Petrou, with his portrait of Private Edward 'Tiny' Falloon who served on Lemnos in 1915. photograph Jim Claven 2014.

A BigThank You to Executive Committee Member Ms Christina Despoteris

Christina meeting Vice Admiral Theodosiou of the Hellenic Navy to help plan for the Anzac events in April.

The Committee would like to thank Ms Christina Despoteris, Executive Committee member for her excellent efforts in working with authorities in Greece on behalf of the Committee in Greece in recent weeks.
Christina has been laising with Australian Embassy officials in Athens, the Hellenic Navy, the War Museum of Athens and authorities on Lemnos to help with preparations for the commemoration of Anzac in April.
It is no small part due to her efforts that the events to be held on Lemnos and in Athens this year will be the best held in many years.
These include:

• Major presentations at Portianou on Lemnos and in Athens at the War Museum of Athens to commemorate the Hellenic link to Anzac
• The display of the Committee's unique photographic display - Lemnos and the Anzacs 1915 - at the Athens War Memorial and at the Portianou Hall on Lemnos - both occurring as part of the Greece and Australia's Anzac commemorations in Greece. With the assistance of Christina, the Committee will gift this 40 photograph as well as information panels permanently to the Athens War Memorial. Similarly, she has worked with Malama Varvara, on behalf of the Lemnian Community of Victoria to make the same gift to the people of Lemnos.
• Successfully promoting our proposal to re-create the famous Anzac football match of 1915 on Lemnos this year - with the Hellenic Army and Australian Navy taking the field at Kontias to replay this famous Anzac event

All of us in Australia and those of us fortune to be able to travel to Lemnos in April look froward to a great commemoration of Anzac in April.
From all of us on the Committee back in Melbourne, thank you Christina.
Jim Claven
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee

Lemnos Hero - Nurse Violet Duddy Memorial Plaque Unveiled

Nurse Violet Duddy's new memorial plaque. Photograph Ange Kenos 2015

It was a great pleasure today to attend the commemorative service and unveiling of the memorial plaque for Queenscliffe Nurse Violet Duddy. The Committee was represented by myself and Mr Ange Kenos.

Born in Hastings, New Zealand Nurse Duddy served in the First World War - at Lemnos, Egypt, England and in France. She arrived on Lemnos in August with the rest of the 3rd Australian General Hospital nurses under Matron Grace Wilson. She served here until the evacuation of the peninsula and the hospital to Egypt in January 1916.
As Maggie Stowers said at the unvieling:
"Conditions were somewhat primitive, with limited medical supplies and the tent hospital exposed to strong winds. A nurse colleague of Violet's wrote in her diary..."our thoughts are constantly with the boys on the
Peninsula...last night we heard distinctly the bombardment...and this morning preparations are being made to take in another thousand wounded." Violet was one of 96 Australian nurses whoserved with this hospital on Lemnos. Today we have representatives from the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee here to honour her."
She was trained at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital. She was 29 when she joined up to the Australian Army Nursing Service on 20 July 1915. She was one of three sisters. For her service she was mentioned in despatches by Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig. After the war, she lived with her sisters at Mt Eliza.

The memorial plaque including the refurbishment of Violet's grave at Queenscliffe Cemetery, the plaque being placed on the headstone.
The local Queenscliffe Historical Museum has showcased items, documents, medals and photographs from Nurse Duddy. A very good display and worth seeing.
Below are some photos of the commemorative service and the Museum display.
The campaign to commemorate Nurse Duddy was led by Maggie Stowers of the Queenscliffe Historical Museum, and received support from the ANMF and the Alfred Hospital Nurses League. Ms Lisa Fitzpatrick, Secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Victorian Branch) attended the unveiling.
The event was well attend - with many former Alfred Hospital nurses in attendance.
Congratulations to Magge Stowers and all who supported this new memorial grave site. This will ensure that another Lemnos nurse is not forgotten.
To read Maggie's speech at the unveiling click  here.
Note Maggie Stowers will be visiting Lemnos later this year along with a number of nurses.
Lest we forget.
Jim Claven
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee

Alfred Hospital nurses pay their respects.

Rev Peter Martin, St George's Anglican Church Queenscliff, Maggie Stowers and Gretel James, the family representative

Committee Member Ange Kenos pays his respects.

 

The exhibition at the Queenscliffe Historical Museum

 

 

 

 

 

Lemnos Hero - Private Percy Graham of Richmond Terrace Richmond

Grave of Private Percy Graham, Portianou Military Cemetery, Portianos, Lemnos. Photograph Jim Claven 2013.

One of the diggers who fought at Gallipoli was young Percy Graham, who had been born in Richmond in 1893 – who enlisted as Private No 1754 in the 5th Battalion.
When he enlisted at Melbourne on 5th December 1914 he was 21 years old, 8 months. Standing at over 5 and half feet, he was recorded as having brown hair, grey eyes and a “fresh” complexion. His religion was Anglican. He had worked as a labourer, unmarried and living with is parents - David Arthur and Florence Graham at 11 Richmond Terrace, Richmond. As a labourer, Percy was one of 30% of the AIF who came from his occupation - along with 34% who were tradesmen.
Percy was one of the nearly 1,500 Richmond men who volunteered up to March 1915, as Richmond historian Janet McCalman has recorded.
The Australian War memorial records that Percy’s Battalion was among the first infantry units raised for the AIF during the First World War. Like the 6th, 7th and 8th Battalions it was recruited from Victoria and, together with these battalions, formed the 2nd Brigade.

HMAT Wiltshire. AWM image.

Percy embarked from Princes Pier in Melbourne as part of the reinforcements for the 5th Battalion. He sailed on 14th April aboard the HMAT Wiltshire (designated A18).
Percy did not take part in the Anzac landings in April or the battle of Krithia thst the 5th took part in – the latter of which saw it lose a third of its strength.
Percy arrived at Gallipoli and was taken on strength with the 5th Battalion at Anzac Cove on 13 July 1915.During his service here at this time, he would have taken part in defending the beachhead and in August taken part in the battle of Lone Pine on 6-9 August 1915.
Percy thus took part in one of the most famous assaults of the Gallipoli campaign. This was originally intended as a diversion from attempts by New Zealand and Australian units to force a breakout from the ANZAC perimeter on the heights of Chunuk Bair and Hill 971. The Lone Pine attack, launched in the late afternoon of 6 August 1915 pitched Australian forces against formidable entrenched Turkish positions, sections of which were securely roofed over with pine logs. In some instances the attackers had to break in through the roof of the trench systems in order to engage the defenders. The main Turkish trench was taken within 20 minutes of the initial charge but this was the prelude to 4 days of intense hand-to-hand fighting, resulting in over 2,000 Australian casualties.

No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital, Turks Head Peninsula, Lemnos, 1915. AWM image.

Like many other diggers at Gallipoli, Percy did not die of wounds on the battlefield but from the unhealthy conditions prevailing on the peninsula. He contracted acute meningitis and was sent to the 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital on Lemnos. Here he would have been cared for by the Australian medical staff, including its Australian nurses. He sadly died on 15th September 1915.

Photograph Jim Claven 2015

He was buried on the same day at Portianous Military Cemetery on Lemnos, the Reverend E.C. Kemp officiating, in plot 4, Row C, Grave 245.. In September 1917 his mother was granted 30 shillings per fortnight as a war pension.
His personal effects included a wristwatch, some cards and letters – presumably from home.
At the end of the war, his family were sent his medals - Victory Medal, 1914-15 Star and the British War medal – along with his Memorial Plaque. In 1922 his father was sent photographs of the temporary cross erected on Percy’s grave at East Mudros.

Example of the Next of Kin plaque - the same as the one awarded to Percy's family. AWM image

As Janet McCalman records in her history of Richmond - Struggletown - Percy was one of the 63 Richmond men to die at Gallipoli – along with 16 missing and 232 wounded or sick. They included the first Australian life lost at the peninsula, Capt J.P .Lalor, grandson of the Eureka Stockade’s Peter Lalor.
Lest we forget
Jim Claven
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee

Lemnos Discovery - Photographs Held at State Library of Victoria

Village and windmills [Lemnos], 1915. Collection of Nurse Kathleen Gawler, SLV

The State Library of Victoria is a treasure trove of photographs and archives relating to WW1. As well as well known diggers and nurses, the collection throws up interesting new finds.
Today I discovered photographs compiled by Australian Nurse Kathleen Gawler that depict Lemnos in 1915. Taken by an unknown photographer they are listed as location unknown. But anyone familiar with the Lemnos archive held across a range of collections will recognise these as almost certainly Lemnos.
Reproduced here are two of the photographs she collected during her war service.

Children in Town street [Lemnos], 1915. Collection of Nurse Kathleen Gawler, SLV

Nurse Kathleen Gawler (on the right) with other nurses. Alexandria, Egypt. c 1916. AWM image P10636.032.001

Nurse Kathleen Gawler - A Short Biography
Kathleen served with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Nursing Service, her collection depicting images of Egypt and Turkey, including Gallipoli. Ivalided to England in January 1920, she returned to Australia.
However she appears to have returned to Egypt, working with the CMS Hospital in Menouf. There she met and married Herbert Hayes, an Anglican Clergyman who had served with the Royal Army Service Corps in WW1. They married on 15 June 1923 at the British consulate, Cairo.
Before the war Hays had joined the Egypt General Mission in Cairo as a genuine missionary (but where he also as an observer for British military intelligence). Hayes had returned to Egypt on19 December 1920, with the Church Missionary Society and took charge of the church and school at Menouf, near Cairo, where he also resumed his undercover work as a political agent.
After their marriage, they both returned to Australia.
Jim Claven
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee