Julie Reece Tours

 

THE GALLIPOLI NARRATIVE: Monday 8 April/Tuesday 9 April

One week and we have traversed thousands of kilometres, three countries, many generations of history and the true impact of our experiences will take time to fully process. To adequately cover what we have seen and learnt would take many more blog posts to produce so with the daily demands of group touring always making us time poor, some brief snapshots will have to suffice at this stage.

Much has been written about the campaign in 1915 that catapulted our newly formed federated nation into an imperial conflict in 1914, but to fully grasp this wartime history one needs to be there and to see the landscape that shaped the battles associated with the Gallipoli narrative. Our Connecting Spirits group saw its history specifically through the stories of five Australian soldiers who took part in the 1915 campaign and where four were killed. We visited the graves of Keith Harrington (Beach Cemetery), Robert Hooper (4^th Battalion Parade Ground cemetery), Carew Reynell (Hill 60 cemetery) and the Lone Pine memorial where William Lear was thought to have died. Mal also took us to the location where his great uncle Maurice Bartley was wounded near Quinn’s post and spent three days trying to get back to safety suffering from gunshot wounds to his leg. We will revisit Uncle Maurie’s story again later in the tour. The 2022 CS tour learnt of Keith Harrington’s death through his older brother Reginald’s diary which I featured in several blog posts. To follow up Keith’s story at his grave this year completed the circle, and it was an emotional and quite sublime experience.

It was a perfect morning as the sun shone over the Aegean and being back at Beach Cemetery after 22 years made more of an impact than I was prepared for. This place is just so beautiful, and it has been said many times that to imagine the horror and human tragedy that took place here amongst such a gorgeous setting seems impossible to comprehend.

Our first stop was the museum at Gabe Tepe on the headland that overlooks the Aegean Sea. It is part of the Gallipoli Peninsula National Park. The museum is a far cry from the one I visited 22 years ago with extensive displays and explanations of the 1915 campaign. It is an impressive concern.

Afterwards, as the group wandered down to THAT beach at Ari Burnu, we all spent time just wandering and wondering. Small stones were collected, some just sat and watched the waves while we had private thoughts and reflections. I watched the young Pearson twins Coen and Thomas, both 19 years of age, soak in this place and as both expressed, they were thinking about the 19-year-olds from over a century ago. It was clear that the beaches of WW1 were making their unique impact on these young men.   This location so steeped in mythology and history is extraordinary.

Our final visit for the day was to Hill 60 and the grave of South Australian Carew Reynell a Lieutenant in the 9^th Light Horse and member of the famous vigneron family of the southern Vales in South Australia. On the second day on the peninsula, we started with a visit to Lone Pine where we reflected on the Ngarrindjeri story through the service of Arthur Thomas Walker who we would learn more about later in the tour in France. Small Ngarrindjeri feather flowers in the colours of the Raukkan community, blue and white, were placed in the ground near the Lone Pine Memorial where on Anzac Day a major service will take place after the traditional Dawn Service at the official Commemoration Site. We were hoping that the flowers will stay in place for April 25. While at Lone Pine Mal spoke about his relative William Lear from the 9^th Light Horse, who died during the August battles under the leadership of Carew Reynell and whose body was never found. Like so many others during the years of the ‘Great War’, Lear was Known Unto God, never to be found.

Our next commemoration was something not attempted on previous tours: a live hook up with the family of Lieutenant Robert Hooper of the 10^th Battalion. I had prearranged with Hooper’s nephew, Graham Weatherald, to phone him from the 4^th Battalion Parade Ground Cemetery. The only problem was that this cemetery is located at the bottom of a steep gully and a challenging walking track. I was unsure if phone contact via WhatsApp would work in this location. And as Graham had arranged for family to be ready in Stirling back home for the video call the pressure was on to make it work. Thankfully we connected and I was able to share live with Graham and his family, images of where Hooper was buried and where we had shared his story. It was a special moment for us all.

Our next story was that of Mal’s great uncle Maurice Bartley, brother of Frank Bartley, who was wounded close to Quinn’s Post.  Mal showed us the location where his great uncle was wounded and took 3 days to get to the beach suffering from gunshot wounds. Despite long periods of hospitalisation and returning to Australia, he eventually returned to active service to see out the war. Maurice raised a family and died in 1967.

When we traverse the western front next week and look back at the first wartime battles of the A.I.F here in the hills, gullies and beaches of the Gallipoli peninsula, the impact of geography will become intensely apparent. The 1915 ‘Baptism of Fire’ would be superseded by the massive industrial battles that became known as attrition warfare. The snipers of the hills and gullies would be replaced by heavy artillery and frontal attacks on the flat lands of the Somme and Flanders. The geography would shape the story.