Lone Pine
Lone Pine is the site of one of the fiercest and costliest battles of the entire Gallipoli campaign, fought over four days in August 1915 as a diversionary Australian assault meant to draw Ottoman attention away from the main New Zealand push on Chunuk Bair. The fighting here was brutal, close-quarters trench warfare that resulted in thousands of casualties on both sides in an area barely larger than a few football fields, and it produced seven Victoria Cross recipients among Australian troops — a concentration of decorated valor almost unmatched elsewhere in the war. Today the site holds the largest Australian cemetery and memorial on the peninsula, marked by a solitary pine tree grown from a seed of the original solitary pine that gave the battle its name and was destroyed in the fighting. It's the focal point of the main Anzac Day commemorative service held here each April, and even outside that period it's one of the most visited and moving stops on any Gallipoli battlefield tour.
Lone Pine FAQs
The site was named for a single pine tree that stood there before the battle destroyed it; the current tree at the site was grown from a seed of that original pine, symbolically replanted after the war.
It was extraordinarily intense trench fighting over a small area in August 1915, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides and seven Victoria Crosses awarded to Australian soldiers, an unusually high concentration for a single engagement.
Yes, it's the site of a major Australian commemorative service each Anzac Day, held after the dawn service at Anzac Cove.
No, it's a free, open cemetery and memorial site.
Lone Pine was an Australian diversionary attack lower on the peninsula, while Chunuk Bair, higher up the ridge, was the New Zealand-led assault it was meant to support; both are part of the same August 1915 offensive.
More in Çanakkale
Reviews/Comments
No comments yet — be the first.