Anzac Day in Gallipoli: Agony of war laid out on the gravestones of Australian and New Zealand soldiers

It’s a truism of Gallipoli.

The greater the peace, the serenity, the beauty of a cemetery, the greater the horror, the anguish, the pain of the stories within.

Ari Burnu is the closest cemetery to Anzac Cove where 16,000 young Australians and New Zealanders landed under fire on April 25, 1915.

Initially it was a slaughter.

Many diggers did not even make it out of the boats rowed ashore.

Many more were killed and wounded on the beach.

Stand on that beach now and look up at the hills beyond and you realise immediately they never had a chance.

As you shake your head in disbelief, your imagination wanders.

You feel as though you can hear the deadly clatter of machine guns and the screams of young men.

It sends chills down your spine.

But stroll into Ari Burnu on a sunny, still day and you hear the water lapping gently on the shore.

If you’re lucky, you can see dolphins bobbing up and down just 50m from the beach.

And the birds! A cacophony of chirping.

It’s gorgeous.

Then a jolt back to reality.

I always make a point of heading to the grave of Frank Rawlings.

He was a 27-year-old draughtsman from Western Australia.

His epitaph jumps out, grabs me around the throat and chokes me up.

Every time I gasp, tears well in my eyes and I have to turn away, my composure gone..

“My Only Darling Son.”

It’s so simple, but it captures the agony, the distress of a distraught mother so far away to whom Frank was the little boy she nurtured and the young man she was so proud of.

The love and despair radiates from that stone.

As a parent of two sons myself, I can’t even bear to imagine it .

Just think ... multiply that 8,700 times right around a nation just 15 years from independence, still struggling with the tyranny of distance and communication.

That’s how many young Aussies were killed at Gallipoli.

Not far from Frank’s grave is another I always visit.

George Seagar enlisted in the Navy at just 15, but transferred to the Army when war broke out.

He told authorities he was 19, but he was really just 17 when he was killed in Gallipoli.

On his grave, again the pain of his parents writ large.

“He died a man and closed his life’s brief day ‘ere it had scarce begun.”

We all know 17-year-old boys.

Our own sons, relatives, our friends’ children.

We all know the last place they should be is on a battlefield.

Both Frank and George were members of the legendary Australian Light Horse.

They were highly trained, courageous riders.

Their skills honed in the Australian bush.

At Gallipoli the terrain — steep hills, ridges , thick bush — rendered their riding skills and training redundant.

So tragically they were used as cannon fodder — literally.

Both Frank and George were killed in the bloody, pointless and infamous charges at Turkish trenches on August 7, 1915 so graphically and powerfully depicted at the end of the movie Gallipoli.

Go to where they died now and once again you shake your head in in disbelief.

The area between where the Australian trenches and the Turkish trenches were is not much bigger than a tennis court.

Yet wave after wave of young soldiers were ordered to climb out of their trenches and sprint towards machine guns.

Just imagine the courage, the steely grit and discipline required to do that having seen wave after wave of your mates massacred before your very eyes!

Not far from there is Walker’s Ridge cemetery.

High in the hills, it has a beautiful view overlooking the sparkling Aegean Sea, usually dotted with fishing boats, ferries to nearby Greek islands and tourist vessels bobbing in the distance.

Once again, idyllic.

Buried there is Major Tom Redford.

He was, by all accounts, a dignified leader respected and well liked by his men.

He inspired Bill Hunter’s character in the film Gallipoli.

In one of the movie’s most poignant lines as wave after wave are sent out to die Hunter says, “I can’t ask my men to do what I wouldn’t do myself”.

On that same principle, Major Redford led his men out on the first suicidal wave.

He was killed after sprinting to within 10m of the Turkish trench.

According to an eyewitness “down he went like a log“.

A friend later wrote: “A braver and more honourable man never donned a uniform.”

Tragically he was one of 154 young Aussies so needlessly killed within minutes.

Bloody heartbreaking.

Last year we visited Tom’s grave with his descendant, Leading Seaman Claire Donaghue.

She was to play at the Dawn Service in the Defence Force Band.

She was deeply moved, fighting back tears.

“He will absolutely be in the back of my mind. I am so proud of his courage!”

Once again, I had to turn away...

In 1985, as a 24-year-old reporter in Canberra I had the great honour of interviewing Gallipoli veteran Charles Bingham as he marked the 70th anniversary of the landing at the Australian War Memorial.

Kindly, gentle, passionate, Charles was a stretcher bearer at Gallipoli.

He spoke of the enormous responsibility and obligation he felt because he was the person to whom many diggers uttered their last words.

It really struck a nerve with me.

I couldn’t comprehend how someone younger than I was could cope with that — time after time after time.

When he came back home after World War I ended, Charles dedicated his life to visiting families of the fallen and to veterans’ welfare.

He insisted their sacrifices should never be forgotten.

After I interviewed him, he told me when there were no more Australian Gallipoli veterans (the last one died in 2001) it would be up to journalists like myself to ensure their stories live on.

“Keep on telling our stories,” he urged.

Now every time I do a story on veterans from any of the wars Australia has been involved in, I think of Frank, George and Tom and their grieving families.

The words of Charles echo in my mind..

And I hope in some small way we are helping to ensure..as that great Australian Banjo Paterson once wrote.

”Their ghosts may be heard.”

We owe it to them.