“It’s time to suspend Ataturk Bingo,” says Barbara, one of our Directors. Maybe you need to be here to understand this but as we enter the Gallipoli Park, our directors, who have been playing Ataturk bingo, had to stop because he is all over the place! He is pretty much all over the place everywhere in Turkey. The venerated Ataturk, is the founder of modern Turkey and the hero of the defeat of the British (Allies) by the so called, “Sick Man of Europe, ” Ottomans. There are 35 cemeteries on the Gallipoli peninsula. It is a sad place, so many wasted lives! We also saw some rebuilt trenches. I hope they were deeper than this.

A physical rendition of the battle shows how close the two sides were to each other once the British/Australians reached the top of the hill.

The park in Eceabat also had a nice statue of Ataturk and a war memorial. He was quoted as saying, “Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.” Ataturk, 1934

This quote is on the war memorial in the Gallipoli park, at Anzac Cove.