Johnston’s Jolly Cemetery

Official CWGC grave listings for Johnston's Jolly Cemetery (external link)

The area of the Anzac battlefield known as Johnston’s Jolly lies along the ridge just north of Lone Pine. It was named for the commander of the 2nd Australian Division Artillery, Brigadier-General George Johnston, and was reached by Australian soldiers on the morning of the landing of 25 April 1915. The field-guns of Johnston’s artillery were said by the troops, to ‘jolly up’ the Turkish battery opposite. This position, known to the Turks as Kirmezi Sirt or ‘Red Ridge’, was lost on 26 April and never retaken by the Australians.

Johnston’s Jolly Cemetery was created after the war when remains were brought here from isolated graves in the surrounding battlefield. Of the 181 burials in this cemetery, 144 are unidentified. There are Special Memorials to 36 Australians known to have been buried here. Nearly all were serving in the 4th and 7th Battalions, and died during the action at Lone Pine between 6 and 10 August 1915. The only identified burial in the cemetery is that of Lance Corporal Herbert Norman May, 15th Battalion, of Casino, New South Wales, who was killed in action on 9 May 1915.

Private Charles Chetwynd Leo Currie,
7th Battalion, AIF
Special Memorial 21

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Johnston’s Jolly Cemetery. [DVA]

After his arrival on the Peninsula in September 1915, Private Euliseus Bilston, 28th Battalion, made a fruitless search for the grave of his nephew, Charles Chetwynd Leo Currie. He penned a verse for Currie’s grieving mother:

Although directed to the place I cannot find a single trace Of where my bonnie nephew sleeps, For whom poor Nell, my sister weeps. Howe’er I tried the search is vain Perhaps someday I’ll try again. [Private E Bilston, MSS1445, AWM]

Private Charles Currie, known as ‘Timmy’, had served with the cadets and the citizen’s forces in Victoria at Ballarat and Geelong, before enlisting in September 1914. On the day of the landing, in the second wave of troops ashore, he sustained a gunshot wound to the head and was hospitalised in Malta until his return to the front in late July. Two weeks later, he was killed in action in the vicinity of Jacob’s Trench during the heavy fighting at Lone Pine on 8 August 1915. Private Currie was one of more than 350 casualties which the 7th Battalion suffered during the four day long ‘Battle of Lone Pine’.

His personal effects were returned to his parents Charles and Ellen Currie at ‘Listowel’, Casterton, Victoria, who acknowledged their receipt with the words - with heart felt thanks from his broken hearted parents. His uncle, Private Bilston, was evacuated from the Peninsula suffering from shell shock in November 1915.

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Johnston’s Jolly Cemetery, Anzac Day, 2005. [DVA]

Lance Corporal George Barre Goldie Simpson,
4th Battalion AIF
Special Memorial 35

In 1924, the mother Lance Corporal George Simpson, Alice Simpson, of Hunter’s Hill, Sydney, was advised that a Special Memorial would be erected to commemorate her deceased son. The memorial would bear the words ‘Believed to be buried in this cemetery, actual grave unknown’ together with his full regimental particulars, and would be erected in Johnston’s Jolly Cemetery at Gallipoli. Mrs Simpson chose to add the personal epitaph:

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Entrance to Johnston’s Jolly Cemetery. [DVA]

Son of Archibald Henry
and Alice Marion Simpson
Found Faithful.

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Johnston’s Jolly Cemetery in August 1921 before the erection of the Stone of Remembrance and landscaping was carried out. [AWM P02751.613]

Twenty-eight year old former grazier Lance Corporal Simpson was a member of the 742 man strong 4th Battalion that took part in the opening attack on Turkish positions at Lone Pine on 6 August 1915. Such was the confusion it was known only that he lost his life sometime between 6 and 9 August.

The 4th Battalion suffered heavily during the Lone Pine battle with every officer hit, including the medical officer and the Dean of Sydney (the battalion chaplain) with the exception of the quartermaster. During the four day long action the battalion suffered 474 casualties.

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Turkish dead photographed during the armistice of 19 May 1915 to allow the Australian and Turkish burial parties to clear bodies from the battlefield. [AWM H03955]

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Men of the 7th Battalion in a trench at Lone Pine, August 1915. [AWM C01929]

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Private Charles ‘Timmy’ Currie, of Casterton, Victoria. [Mr Des Currie]

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Certificate issued by the Shire of Glenelg in appreciation Private Charles Currie’s war service. [Courtesy of Mr Des Currie]

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Lance Corporal George Barre Goldie Simpson, 4th Battalion AIF, killed in action, Lone Pine, August 1915. [Sydney Morning Herald, 27 August 1915]