WHAT DOES “ANZAC” STAND FOR?

Initials of

“Australian and New Zealand Army Corps”

applied specifically to men who landed at Gallipoli on and after April 25th 1915.

ANZAC Day

April 25

Australia pays homage to the brave Anzacs, who landed at Gallipoli, on April 25th annually.

This day not only commemorates the Australian and New Zealand Forces who paid the ultimate sacrifice during the battle at Gallipoli 1915, but for all men and women who have given their lives for this country in ‘all’ wars.

SIMPSON AND HIS DONKEY

The legend of the heroic Digger and his faithful donkey, dragging the wounded from the battlefield, was created in less than a month on the hills around Gallipoli.

John Simpson Kirkpatrick was born in England and found himself in Australia when he jumped ship from a rusting ocean freighter. He enlisted in the Army and used the name Simpson to cover his illegal entry and hoped to get a posting to England to he could visit relatives.

In stead he landed at Gallipoli where he shrugged off threats to his own safety, from Turkish fire, and rescued wounded comrades on the back of a donkey. 

Simpson continued his humanitarian mission for twenty-four days before being shot and fatally wounded on May 19th, 1915.

The LONE PINE Tree

The Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) in the War Memorial's grounds was planted by HRH The Duke of Gloucester on 24 October 1934. It bears the following inscription:

After the capture of the Lone Pine ridge in Gallipoli (6 August 1915), an Australian Soldier who had taken part in the attack, in which his brother was killed, found a cone on one of the branches used by the Turks as overhead cover for their trenches, and sent it to his mother. From seed shed by it she raised the tree, which she presented to be planted in the War Memorial grounds in honour of her own and others' sons who fell at Lone Pine.