As Australia this year marks the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign, Braidwood couple, Mark and Germaine Keys, have sailed to Turkey as guests of Cunard on board Queen Elizabeth in an emotional pilgrimage to the World War One battlefield.
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Mark’s great grandfather, Second Lieutenant Francis Jensen, a father of three young children and a Boer War veteran, died of wounds at Anzac Cove just days after arriving with his 28th Australian Infantry Battalion comrades.
Mark and Germaine have become the first members of the family to have the opportunity to visit the place where Francis Jensen fell and to see his name inscribed on the Australian memorial at Lone Pine.
Jensen’s battlefield grave was lost in the confusion of war and the Lone Pine inscription is the only record of his sacrifice at Gallipoli.
The Keys’ have three sons – Jim, Pete and Ned – all about the same age as their great great grandfather when he became one of the 11,500 Australian and New Zealand troops who died during the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign.
“When we visit Gallipoli, we will think of the sacrifice of those young men being so far from home and fearlessly losing their lives for king and country,” Mark said. “We might not understand the ‘king and country’ part these days but I think their sacrifice still resonates to this day.”
Germaine Keys said that many of the young men who sailed off to Gallipoli seeing it at first as an adventure were at heart just ‘bush boys from the country’.
“Our three sons are bush boys and it makes you think of all the bush boys who went off to war not knowing what was ahead of them and that the mothers left behind were left devastated,” Germaine said. “They were bush boys who loved adventure and the camaraderie with their mates.”
Mark and Germaine sailed to Istanbul on the luxury ship’s and then were among almost 500 Australians and New Zealanders were on deck for a very special memorial service as the ship sailed the waters off the Gallipoli Peninsula,
A two-metre high poppy wall floral tribute, shaped as ‘100’ to mark the Anzac centenary, formed the centrepiece for the ceremony. The wall was filled with 11,500 red poppies donated by Australians and New Zealanders during Queen Elizabeth’s calls to Auckland and Sydney as part of her current world cruise, with the flowers representing the number of Anzacs killed during the campaign.
Visitors to the poppy wall in Auckland and Sydney also wrote personal messages in a special remembrance book, with a selection of those read at this morning’s service. The book will be placed in the ship’s library where it will remain in memory of the heroes of Gallipoli.
Captain Inger Klein Thorhauge said she was honoured to bring Queen Elizabeth’s guests to the waters of Gallipoli for such a significant occasion.
“The Anzac story resonates for all of us at Cunard,” Captain Klein Thorhauge said. “Our connection with the armed forces of Britain, New Zealand and Australia runs very deep. Cunard has supported the services going back to the Crimean War. In World War One, 20 Cunard ships and many of their crew were lost. It is a legacy of service of which we at Cunard are very proud.”