A name etched in stone at a Gallipoli battleground has powerful meaning for army reservist Andrew Thomas who knows that somewhere nearby lie the bones of his great grandfather's brother.
One hundred years ago Sergeant John Alexander Dalgleish and 848 other New Zealanders were killed in the Battle of Chunuk Bair, the most significant and bloody New Zealand engagement of the Gallipoli campaign.
Mr Thomas, a 30-year-old carpenter from Palmerston North, is part of the New Zealand Defence Force contingent conducting Saturday's centenary commemoration of the August 1915 battle.
Taking part in the service at the New Zealand memorial will be Governor-General Jerry Mateparae, Veterans' Affairs Minister Craig Foss and Victoria Cross winner Willie Apiata.
Mr Thomas is on his first trip to Gallipoli and has a special connection to Chunuk Bair through his relative, Sgt Dalgleish, who was only 23 when he died and is likely one of hundreds of unidentified men lying in unmarked graves at the site.
On Wednesday Mr Thomas walked the Chunuk Bair summit and visited the memorial wall where his relative's name is listed among the dead.
"It catches you in the throat when you see the name that you know was there but there's that little finger of doubt, then there it is and it's in stone and it's real.
"I believe I'm the only one in my family to visit Chunuk Bair, it's a very special thing," he told NZN.
Sgt Dalgleish was in the Otago Battalion when on the night of August 8, 1915, it was tasked with reinforcing the Chunuk Bair summit which earlier in the day had been taken from the Turks by the Wellington Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel William Malone.
The Zealanders were relieved by British troops who were pushed off the summit on August 10 by determined Turkish attackers led by Mustafa Kemal who would later become Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
At Saturday's service a bugle that was used in the Gallipoli campaign will be played by Leading Musician Colin Clark of the Royal New Zealand Navy to sound The Last Post.
The bugle was unearthed from under a house in Ponsonby, Auckland, in 1961 and has been loaned by a museum, allowing it to be played at the Anzac Day service at Chunuk Bair earlier this year and again on Saturday.
Leading Musician Clark said it's very humbling to be asked to play an instrument that landed with New Zealand troops at Gallipoli 100 years ago.
"It's a lovely instrument to play and I'm very proud to be playing it."
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