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Prior to the battle, isolated fighting around Lone Pine had begun early in the Gallipoli campaign. At around 7:00 a.m. on the first day of the Australian and New Zealand landings at Anzac Cove, 25 April 1915, elements of the Australian force had pushed through to Lone Pine in an effort to destroy an Ottoman artillery battery that had been firing down upon the landing beach.
On 8 August 1915, the 7th Battalion moved into positions captured the previous day in the Battle of Lone Pine, and he took over responsibility for the defence of the entire position. He led his men from the front trenches, steadying them in an uncertain situation.
Despite the battalion's success in holding the trenches at Lone Pine, the August Offensive failed to break the deadlock as setbacks elsewhere resulted in continued stalemate and for the rest of the campaign the fighting was relatively static. [20] Finally, in December the decision was made to evacuate the Allied force from the peninsula.
The original Lone Pine, a Turkish pine (Pinus brutia), is native to the Gallipoli Peninsula, and scattered specimens grew across hills.The original Lone Pine was the sole survivor of a group of trees that had been cut down by Turkish soldiers for timber and branches to cover their trenches during the battle. [2]
In early 1916, the VC, along with a cover letter from King George V, was presented to Burton's father who later wore it for the homecoming of Frederick Tubb, who was a friend of Burton's, and had returned to Australia to convalesce from the wounds received at Lone Pine. [5]
On 8–9 August 1915, at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, Turkey, Symons was in command of a section of newly captured trenches and repelled several counter-attacks with great coolness. An enemy attack on an isolated sap early in the morning resulted in six officers becoming casualties and part of the sap being lost, but Symons retook it, shooting two Turks.
Lone Pine Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery dating from World War I in the former Anzac sector of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey and the location of the Lone Pine Memorial, one of five memorials on the peninsula which commemorate servicemen of the former British Empire killed in the campaign but who have no known grave.
His Victoria Cross was posthumously awarded after Shout died of his wounds during the Battle of Lone Pine. [4] Another 19 VCs have been awarded to soldiers who were either born in Australia, or died there, but did not serve in Australian units before being awarded the VC, and as such these are not included in this list. [5]