Family never received son's last letter
One can only imagine how the family of Donald Shapley McLean felt.
They had been told they had lost their son in World War I, killed in action at Gallipoli.
Then they were told he had left a few possessions in a paper parcel, including a letter.
How they must have longed for the letter's arrival, to be able to read his thoughts from beyond the grave.
They waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally his father Dugald wrote to the minister of defence in July 1916 to say it had still not been sent back to the family.
"From a friend who was with our boy in the trenches, we learnt long ago that he had written home the night before his death and you can understand we are very anxious to get that letter," Dugald wrote.
Records show that military authorities wrote to the family in December to say the missing parcel containing the letter had been sent in error to the family of another fallen Digger, also by the name of Donald McLean, also of the 10th Light Horse.
In February 1917, Donald Shapley McLean's family was still writing to the minister for answers. Ian Johnson, of South Beach, knows the story of the missing letter well.
Donald Shapley McLean's grave at Walkers Ridge. Picture: Steve Ferrier/The West Australian
It was written by one of his great-uncles, and the family had never been able to uncover what happened to it, he said.
Yesterday, Mr Johnson took a drive up to Walkers Ridge cemetery, high above Anzac Cove.
It is one of the less well-known cemeteries that are found across the area the Anzacs occupied in 1915, and is reached down a dirt track.
Anzac Day commemorations from Gallipoli to Kings Park
Away on one side is a stunning view over Suvla Bay and not far away in another direction the familiar land form of the Sphinx rises up into the sky above the Anzac Cove beaches.
Among the small group of headstones at Walkers Ridge is one which is particularly important to Mr Johnson: that of Digger number 962, 10th Light Horse trooper Donald Shapley McLean.
Trooper McLean joined his regiment at Gallipoli on July 13, 1915.
Little more than three weeks later, he was dead.
He fell in the tragic charge into Turkish guns at a narrow stretch of land known as the Nek on August 7, 1915.
Yesterday, Mr Johnson took to the headstone replicas of Trooper McLean's medals and a knitted poppy which had been made by volunteers for the centenary of the departure of the Anzac fleet from Albany.
And as the waves washed ever so gently on to the shores far below, he knelt in silent contemplation.
Mr Johnson said he had also visited the grave of another great-uncle, Allan Mercer, who was killed in action in France on August 7, 1916, exactly one year after Donald fell.
Mr Johnson said he had gone to Walkers Ridge to remember on behalf of his family.
"We won't ever forget," he said.
Morning news break – April 24
