Wattle Park Lone Pine Memorial - The Lemnos Connection

Photo Jim Claven 2017

Recently Committee member Malcolm MacDonald and myself visited the Lone Pine Memorial at Wattle Park in Melbourne's eastern suburbs.
There is a proposal to add a commemoration of Lemnos and its role in the battles of Lone Pine to this memorial area.
The Memorial area contains a clocktower monument, surrounded by smaller memorial plaques, in front of a pine tree grown from a seedling from the pine trees of the Gallipoli peninsula. The memorial also includes information boards, not dissimilar to that of the Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial in Albert Park.
An annual Anzac Day service is held at the Memorial under the auspices of the Wattle Park Heritage Group and Parks Victoria.

Photo Jim Claven 2017

Photo Jim Claven 2017

Photo Jim Claven 2017

Wattle Park Patriotic Area
This area in Wattle Park commemorates the 24th Battalion. which served at Gallipoli and France in WW1. The Battalion has its roots in a militia unit, the Kooyong Battalion.
After sailing for Egypt in May 1915 aboard the HMAT Euripides, the Battalion was transferred to Gallipoli in September 1915. Here it served as a relief battalion (along with the 23rd Battalion) defending the Lone Pine sector until the evacuation of the peninsula in December 1915.
The Battalion included Lieutenant Stanley Savige, who was one of the officers commanding the rearguard during the evacuation.
Later Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Savige commanded the Battalion as as militia unit after the end of the war. The Battalion used the Wattle Park area for its training base after WW1. In May 1929 a Trooping of the Colour ceremony was held at Wattle Park in commemoration of the departure of the battalion in 1915 for Egypt and Gallipoli.

Photo Jim Claven 2017

The Clocktower Monument
This was erected by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board in 1948 in honour of a soldier of the 7th Battalion who fell during WW1. Research has revealed the soldier was 26 year old Private Royden Louis Charles Bennett, who fell at Pozieres in 1917.

Photo Jim Claven 2017

The Lone Pine
The pine tree memorial was propagated from a seedling from the orginal solitary Loine Pine that stood on the famous Gallipoli battlefield of the same name. The cone from which four seedlings were grown was taken from battlefield by Private Thomas Keith McDowell of Wonthaggi, a soldier with the 23rd Battalion.
It was planted on 7th May 1933 by the Mayor of Box Hill, at an event organised by Lieutentant Colonel Stanley Savige.
Another seedling from this same cone was planted at the Shrine of Remembrance.

Photo Jim Claven 2017

Photo Jim Claven 2017

Photo Jim Claven 2017

Lemnos, Lone Pine and Wattle Park
There are many direct connections between Lone Pine and Lemnos - and the Wattle Park area.
Some of these are:

• Lemnos was the forward base for the Gallipoli campaign of 1915;
• In preparation for the coming battle of Lone Pine (and the other connected attacks planned as part of the August Offensive at Gallipoli) a major increase in the medical facilities on Lemnos was undertaken;
• Approximately 136 Australian nurses (as well as other medical staff) were sent to Lemnos to support the location of two new Australian field hospitals (the 3rd Australian General Hospital and the 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital) as part of this enhanced medical base. This was the first location of Australian nurses into a warzone;
• One of the nurses – Nurse Clarice Daley - was born in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, not far from Wattle Park, in Box Hill;
• Lieutenant Stanley Savige and the soldiers of the 24th Battalion, whose service is commemorated at the Wattle Park Memorial, served on Lemnos – arriving there from Egypt with his battalion in September prior to going to Gallipoli, returned there after the evacuation for two weeks, including taking part in the famous Anzac Christmas celebrations on Lemnos in December 1915. From their arrival on 8th August, these field hospitals and the nurses were caring for the wounded from Lone Pine and the other August Offensive battles;
• 8 diggers have been identified as being from the battalions principally involved in the Lone Pine battles, having been wounded and cared for on Lemnos and being buried in one of the Islands two commonwealth war cemeteries. A list of these diggers is attached. Another 5 diggers buried on Lemnos are from other battalions which the Australian War Memorial identifies as being part of the battle of Lone Pine; and,
• Of the 13 diggers listed above, 7 were tended by the Australian nurses at either the 3rd AGH or 2nd ASH on Lemnos before they succumbed to their wounds and were buried in one of the Islands two commonwealth war cemeteries. 6 of these were from Victoria, one from Hawthorn. 

Photo Jim Claven 2017

The Committee will soon put a proposal to the Wattle Park Heritage Committee to add a new plaque to the existing memorial recognizing the rtole of Lemnos, its nurses, the dead of Lone Pine who remain there and their connection to Wattle Park.
Watch this space.


Jim Claven
Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee