Wooden cross from "Australia's most sacre acre"
Faithe JonesThis shrine houses the wooden cross erected to mark the common grave in which many of those killed in the 1916 offensive were buried. The cross actually stood in France for a number of years. When the Australian cemetery was finished by the War Graves Commission, the cross was returned to Australia and forwarded to the 10th Battalion-the first South Australian unit to be formed. The shrine is in the form of a canopy of rough stone. Inside a stone base, on which the cross is housed in a steel case with a shatter-proof glass front. The shrine is similar to those seen on the wayside in France.
According to Australia's war historian (Mr. C. E W. Bean), the site of the Pozieres- Windmill and the ridge between Pozieres and Mouquet Farm was outside Gallipoli, Australia's most sacred acre. "Even during the war it was recognised that no corner of France was so thickly sown with Australian dead as the summit of this ridge," Mr. Bean says. Casualties in the Pozieres-Mouquet Farm operations between July 13 and September 26, 1916, were:-First Division, 7,654; Second Division. 8,114: Fourth Division, 7,058. The battle of Pozieres, on July 23, was the first offensive operation in which the 10th Battalion took part in France, and it was then that Capt. A. S. Blackburn, City Coroner, won South Australia's first V.C. in the war.
