Thousands gather for ANZAC Day memorials around world

 

Australian and New Zealand soldiers stand guard during a dawn ceremony marking the 103rd anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign during World War One at Anzac Cove, Turkey, April 25, 2018, where the first battles of the campaign were fought. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Thousands of people attended dawn war memorial services on Wednesday across Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, France and in Thailand to commemorate ANZAC Day, the Gallipoli landings and the centenary of the final year of World War One.

 

On April 25, 1915, thousands of troops from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, where they fought under their own flags for the first time.

 

The date is seared into the national consciousness as a point where the two nations emerged from the shadow of the British empire, and has become a solemn anniversary to remember troops from both countries who served and died in all wars.

 

An estimated 44,000 Allied soldiers were killed in the Gallipoli campaign, according to the Australian War Memorial.

 

At the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, World War One soldiers were honoured with excerpts from their diaries, read before the dawn service, to commemorate 100 years since the last battles before the Armistice was declared in November 1918.

 

In France, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull took part in a dawn service to mark the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux in World War One. Some 2,400 Australians died in the overnight battle on April 24, 1918, to retake the town from German forces.

 

"We particularly remember those who lost their lives or came home wounded, and we acknowledge the hardship and pain borne by their families and loved ones," Turnbull said in a video message posted on Facebook.

 

World War Two veterans, some of them former prisoners of war (POWs), gathered in Thailand's western province of Kanchanaburi to remember the thousands of POWs and Asian laborers who died when Japanese occupying forces put them to work on the infamous "death railway", a supply route to Japanese troops in the then Burma, now Myanmar.

 

“I get quite emotional at the dawn service as dawn is breaking. I think of all of the friends, and my mates, as we call them, that were left on the railway,” said Australian Neil McPherson, 96, a former POW.

 

Harold Martin, aged 101, said: “I’d like to say a word for the ordinary soldiers that were up there because there were a lot of heroes that were never mentioned."

 

(Reporting by Alison Bevege in SYDNEY, Juarawee Kittisilpa in Kanchanaburi,and Amy Sawitta Lefevre in BANGKOK; Editing by Michael Perry)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-04-25

Public holiday   and  always Collingwood versus Essendon in the football.

Australia is a vastly different  country from the WW2  days.

Not a topic of conversation with most Australians.

We should never have fought for the British in Europe.

ANZAC day will eventually die away same as the veterans.

Sad but true.

 

 

17 minutes ago, lanista said:

Public holiday   and  always Collingwood versus Essendon in the football.

Australia is a vastly different  country from the WW2  days.

Not a topic of conversation with most Australians.

We should never have fought for the British in Europe.

ANZAC day will eventually die away same as the veterans.

Sad but true.

 

 

I don't think so.

 

I watched the march in my average sized Aussie country town today.

 

The school kids marched..people cheered and clapped,there was plenty of good humour and there was just the right amount of solemnity at the cenotaph.

 

Aussies talk about all sorts of things, by the way.

 

Oh yeah-on the subject of Aussies..the Cambodian family that runs the cake shop were there..the Sikh family were out in force and the Chinese kids were having a ball.All waving their little Aussie flags.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Odysseus123 said:

I don't think so.

 

I watched the march in my average sized Aussie country town today.

 

The school kids marched..people cheered and clapped,there was plenty of good humour and there was just the right amount of solemnity at the cenotaph.

 

Aussies talk about all sorts of things, by the way.

 

Oh yeah-on the subject of Aussies..the Cambodian family that runs the cake shop were there..the Sikh family were out in force and the Chinese kids were having a ball.All waving their little Aussie flags.

 

 

I think you are right, people have not forgotten what happened in the past.  2018 is 100 years since the end of WW1, people of all ages still respect those who got themselves killed or maimed fighting for their country.  Will they continue to remember in another 100 years?  I hope they do.

16 minutes ago, Odysseus123 said:

I don't think so.

 

I watched the march in my average sized Aussie country town today.

 

The school kids marched..people cheered and clapped,there was plenty of good humour and there was just the right amount of solemnity at the cenotaph.

 

Aussies talk about all sorts of things, by the way.

 

Oh yeah-on the subject of Aussies..the Cambodian family that runs the cake shop were there..the Sikh family were out in force and the Chinese kids were having a ball.All waving their little Aussie flags.

 

Excellent post

2 minutes ago, PREM-R said:

I think you are right, people have not forgotten what happened in the past.  2018 is 100 years since the end of WW1, people of all ages still respect those who got themselves killed or maimed fighting for their country.  Will they continue to remember in another 100 years?  I hope they do.

I think that they will but of course it changes over time-as you would expect.

 

I can remember as a small boy in 1963..looking down George street in Sydney and seeing the massed battalions of both the First and Second War veterans..not to mention Korea..

Lest we forget

Edited April 25, 20188 yr by samran

Australia New Zealand Army Corp Two Countries Young Men United to make this Unit. In New Zealand both flags are flown together and We remember the dead of Both Nations.

Yes the World has changed but the crowds do not diminish.

The Veterans ranks may thin but We who descended from them remember their sacrifice and the legacy they left for us.

My Grandfather and Great Uncles in the First and My Father and Uncles in the Second.

Some never came home. Those who did bought their scars and Nightmares.

We must remember so this madness never happens again

1 minute ago, car720 said:

They dare not.

"They dare not"

 

Some kind of military motto?

 

The 3rd Battalion,ThaiVisa Regiment?

I marched in Brisbane and was very happy to see the huge crowd of families clapping and cheering. Despite what certain groups do to try to diminish our sense of nation the importance of this event is being carried forward to the young of today.

18 hours ago, PREM-R said:

I think you are right, people have not forgotten what happened in the past.  2018 is 100 years since the end of WW1, people of all ages still respect those who got themselves killed or maimed fighting for their country.  Will they continue to remember in another 100 years?  I hope they do.

The UK using the Australian troops as cannon fodder.

40 minutes ago, AsiaHand said:

The UK using the Australian troops as cannon fodder.

I am not sure that your statement is correct.

 

" Far more British soldiers fought on the Gallipoli peninsula than Australians and New Zealanders put together.

The UK lost four or five times as many men in the brutal campaign as its imperial Anzac contingents. The French also lost more men than the Australians.

The Aussies and Kiwis commemorate Gallipoli ardently, and understandably so, as their casualties do represent terrible losses both as a proportion of their forces committed and of their small populations."

Link

19 hours ago, lanista said:

Public holiday   and  always Collingwood versus Essendon in the football.

Australia is a vastly different  country from the WW2  days.

Not a topic of conversation with most Australians.

We should never have fought for the British in Europe.

ANZAC day will eventually die away same as the veterans.

Sad but true.

 

 

ANZAC will never die away as long as the world continues to kill themselves. For ANZACS the last major conflict was Vietnam, before that Korea. Since those days we have had men in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and have lost young lives there.

58 minutes ago, AsiaHand said:

The UK using the Australian troops as cannon fodder.

 

Why not read the reality rather than spout some pc rhetoric?

 

It's disgraceful that people post such comments and disrespect all those brave men and women, many of whom gave their lives, because their sense of duty and disgust at evil regimes and love of freedom was a high priority to them. Many many volunteered.

 

All sides in that awful WW1 conflict suffered terrible casualties as their senior officers struggled to come to terms with the changes needed because of the advances in weapons and changes in strategy and tactics.

 

 

13 minutes ago, tigermoth said:

ANZAC will never die away as long as the world continues to kill themselves. For ANZACS the last major conflict was Vietnam, before that Korea. Since those days we have had men in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and have lost young lives there.

 

And sadly, given the amount of ongoing conflicts currently around the world, plus some muscle flexing by a few big boys posturing to either retain or increase their influence and power, it's looking likely another major war is coming.

 

Political leaders never learn because it's rarely them that suffer.