The eight month campaign in Gallipoli was fought by Commonwealth and French forces in an attempt to force Turkey out of the war, to relieve the deadlock of the Western Front in France and Belgium, and to open a supply route to Russia through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea. The Allies landed on the peninsula on 25-26 April 1915; the 29th Division at Cape Helles in the south and the Australian and New Zealand Corps north of Gaba Tepe on the west coast, an area soon known as Anzac. Beach Cemetery was used from the day of the landing at Anzac, almost until the evacuation. There are 391 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. Special memorials commemorate 11 casualties believed to be buried among them. 22 of the burials are unidentified.

Further Information: The cemetery includes the grave of 'The Man with the Donkey', Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick (served as Private John Simpson).  His bravery carrying wounded men down to the beach on his donkey became legend, although he was not awarded the VC.  A petition sent to the War Office from the Australian people in 1967 requesting a posthumous VC was refused on the grounds that it would create a precedent, but there is a bronze statue of him in the Shrine of Remembrance at Melbourne and he was shown on the 5d stamp issued to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Gallipoli Landings in 1965.

No. of Identified Casualties: 369