Lifeboat no. 5, SS Devanha

The Devanha lifeboat no. 5 is a relic of the ANZAC landing on Gallipoli. Devanha was a P&O steamship requisitioned as a troopship in 1915, and was operated by merchant navy officers and crew. As HMT Devanha, it transported men of the 12th Battalion, the 3rd Field Ambulance and the 3rd Infantry Brigade Headquarters ashore on 25 April. At 11pm the troops moved to HMS Ribble, one of six Royal Navy destroyers at the landing. Around 4.10am the lifeboats were brought alongside and loaded, each with some 30 men. Those from the Ribble were towed ... by a steam pinnace to within 50 yards off the shore. Those from the other six destroyers had to row the whole way. (Lieutenant Leslie Newton, 12th Battalion) The men of the 3rd Field Ambulance were in the second tow and they soon came under fire of increasing intensity. Their unit diary records that they landed below the feature that later came to be called the Sphinx. Once on the beach, they sheltered behind sand banks and tended their own wounded while waiting to help others.

The P&O Steam Navigation Company donated lifeboat no. 5 to the Australian War Memorial in December 1919.