Lemnos' Egyptian Pier - Where Albert Jacka left Lemnos

The view from the Egyptian Pier, the Australian Pier in the distance. Photo Jim Claven 2018

Last year our Committee - with the support of the Victorian State Government and authorities on Lemnos - unveiled a special plaque at the site of Australian Pier. This pier was erected by Australian troops in March 1915, one of the first major pieces of infrastructure to be constructed by the Allies on the Island. And it remains there to this day.
Just to the north of the Australian Pier is the location of another imported piece of Lemnos' Gallipoli campaign history. For here lies the remains of the Egyptian Pier, so called because it was constructed by some of the hundreds of Egyptian labourers who volunteered to come to Lemnos during the campaign to work as part of the British Army's Egyptian Labour Corps.
The remains of this pier are also significant for Australians. After the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula in December 1915, thousands of Australian and other Allied troops came to Lemnos and its camps for a few days or weeks rest and recuperation before their departure for Alexandria and other battle fronts.
The soldiers of the Colonel John Monash's Australian 4th Brigade were camped in the East Mudros area rather than at the other major camps on the Island at Sarpi and West Mudros. These troops included Sergeant Albert Jacka who had been awarded Australia's first Victoria Cross of the war and Ernie Hill who would survive the war and successfully lobby government for the creation of a new soldier settlement near Shepparton in north eastern Victoria and new it Lemnos.

Egyptian Pier, 1915. James Edward McPhee Collection, State Library of Victoria.

After celebrating Christmas on Lemnos, these soldiers began their departure from the Island by marching down to the Egyptian Pier where they boarded lighters or barges to take them out to the troopships anchored in Mudros Bay that would take them to Egypt.
Little remains of the Egyptian Pier but the stones which formed its core structure are still there, leading off from the shore into the bay.
It would be great to mark this important pier - built by the Egyptian Labour Corps during the Gallipoli campaign as part of Advanced Base for the campaign and the site from where the Australians camped at East Mudros in December made their final departures from the Island they had come to know so well.
Such a commemorative marker would complement the others on Lemnos, especially the Australian Pier, and add to its growing Anzac Trail.

Jim Claven
Secretary, Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee