Pine Cone from Lone Pine : Second Lieutenant S G Savige, 24 Battalion, AIF

Small pine cone.

After eight months of fighting and more than 26,000 casualties, the Australians evacuated Gallipoli on 20 December 1915.

Lieutenant Savige of the 24th Battalion was in command of one of the last Australian parties to leave the peninsula and collected this pine cone from the Lone Pine battlefield. One of the most famous assaults of the Gallipoli campaign, the Battle of Lone Pine was launched by the 1st Brigade AIF in the late afternoon of 6 August 1915 and pitched Australian forces against formidable entrenched Turkish positions, sections of which were securely roofed over with pine logs. In some instances the attackers had to break in through the roof of the trench systems in order to engage the defenders. The main Turkish trench was taken within 20 minutes of the initial charge but this was the prelude to four days of brutal hand-to-hand fighting, resulting in over 2,000 Australian casualties.

The battlefield received its name from a single tree; an Aleppo pine that stood there. Many pine cones made their way back to Australia as mementos and a tree propagated from one of these cones stands today at the Australian War Memorial.

Lieutenant Savige went on to serve with the 24th Battalion on the Western Front and was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his bravery in early 1917. After volunteering for special service, Savige was sent to Persia in March 1918 as part of Dunsterforce. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for protecting refugees while under fire.

During the Second World War, Savige saw service in the Middle East, Greece and South West Pacific. Rising to the rank of Lieutenant General, Savige commanded II Corps in the Bougainville campaign and accepted the surrender of the Japanese at Torokina.

He is widely remembered for his efforts between the wars in founding the Legacy Clubs (which he modelled on the 'Remembrance Club' formed in Hobart by his friend and former commander Sir John Gellibrand in 1923) to care for the dependants of deceased servicemen and ex-servicemen. These clubs grew into a nation wide organisation which, by the time of Savige's death, was supporting over 80,000 widows and children. Knighted in 1950, Savige died at his home in Kew in 1954.

• Display box for pine cone from Lone Pine : Second Lieutenant S G Savige, 24 Battalion, AIF