Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed - The Shrine of Remembrance Interview

Recently I was interviewed at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance by Leigh Gilburt for the Shrine's Podcast series.During the interview I explain some of the key themes and interesting aspects from my research into Lemnos' role in the Gallipoli campaign and reflect on the writing of my new book, Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed. As the Shrine Podcasts states:
"Over the course of 1915, most of the 50,000 Australian personnel who served at Gallipoli passed through the island of Lemnos. Centring his attention on the Australian experience of the island, historian Jim Claven shares unique and humanising insights into the Gallipoli campaign. Lemnos and Gallipoli Revealed is available through the Shrine shop."
You can listen to the interview by clicking on the following link.
A big thank you to Leigh Gilburt and all at the Shrine of Remembrance for their support of the book and our work over the years.
Jim Claven, Secretary
Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee

Lemnos Contrasts - A Diggers Memories - 1935

A young shepherd on Lemnos, 1915-16. Staff Nurse Evelyn Hutt Collection, State Library of Victoria

The following account by an unnamed Australian soldier who served on Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign was published in 1935.

"A recent paragraph in "Smith's" about Lemnos Island recalls to my mind a day spent on the Mudros side of the harbor. The narrow streets of Mudros were thronged with Australians, Tommies, New Zealanders, French, Indians, Ghurkas, and Senegalese from the camps. 
Nearby was a Turkish prisoners' camp. On the waterfront and the harbor all was bustle and activity. Boats and troops were coming and going, stores were being landed, G.S. wagons churning up the dust. And then the contrast. 
A half-hour's walk took my cobber and me into the hills. What a change! Not a sight or sound of the activity left behind. A tortoise flops into a pool at our approach. The only sound to be heard was the tinkle of bells from a flock of sheep on the hillside, the shepherd, with his staff, standing motionless. 
In the near distance was a village, marked by windmills with the sails set, while beyond, across the beautiful blue of the Aegean, a small Island showed out under a cloudless sky. My cobber and I were both Impressed by the beauty and quietness of the scene, and he said: "You wouldn't think there was a war on!" - "91.""

From Smith's Weekly, Saturday 27 April 1935
 

Windmill on Lemnos, 1915-16. Staff Nurse Evelyn Hutt Collection, State Library of Victoria

This is reminiscent of the photographs show here from the Staff Nurse Evelyn Hutt collection held by the State Library of Victoria and the accounts recorded by an another digger in his private diary - Private Henry Gissing of 1st Field Ambulance. Henry also wrote of seeing Turkish prisoners near the pier where he landed at Mudros on 10th Arpil, the next day recording the presence of French soldiers at Mudros, with whom he shared a drink or two! On 21st June Henry wrote of watching sheep at Mudros and on the 14th and 15th October of walking into the hills behind Mudros and described the scene in not dissimilar terms.

Just another story from Australia's Lemnos archive.

Jim Claven
Secretary, Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee