NEVER MIND ME BOYS
SAVE SERJEANT BEATON

TROOPER GEORGE RICHARD SOMERVILLE JOHNSTON

AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE

10TH NOVEMBER 1915 AGE 22

BURIED: EMBARKATION PIER CEMETERY, TURKEY


Serjeant Beaton survived and returned to Australia at the end of the war. Trooper Johnston died of his wounds and was buried at Embarkation Pier Cemetery, Gallipoli. After the evacuation his grave was lost so that now he has a Special Memorial, a normal headstone but with the addition of the words 'Believed to be buried in this cemetery'.
Johnstone's stoicism must have been reported to his parents for his father to have been able to quote them in his inscription. It's the same stoicism as Private Ernest Proven's "Go on, I'll manage", which Ernest's father chose for his inscription. Simple, powerful words, which do more than words like, honour, glory, duty, sacrifice to illustrate the qualities of the soldiers of a century ago.