Private Alexander Baptie

Private Alexander Baptie, 1st Battalion, Australian Infantry. He was posted missing at Gallipoli between 1st-5th May 1915 aged 24. He was thge son of Janet and the late Alexander Baptie of Cannon Street, Selkirk and is commemorated on the Lone Pine ,Memorial, Gallipoli, Turkey. He had emigrated to Australia in 1911 and had worked as a labourer at Walwa, New South Wales when he had enlisted in December 1914. Back in Scotland he had served for three years as a Territorial with the 4th K.O.S.B. The ANZACs ( Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ) had landed at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915 but had been stalemated since then despite some desperate fighting by an obdurate Turkish defence. The photograph shows troops of the 1st Battalion in a trench near Lone Pine.