# ANZAC Day



## Tish (Apr 24, 2021)

Today April 25th we honor and remember all Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations" and "the contribution and suffering of all those who have served"
Anzac Day was originally devised to honor the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who served in the Gallipoli Campaign, their first engagement in the First World War (1914–1918).


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## Warrigal (Apr 24, 2021)

This day just one year ago just before dawn I stood at the end of our driveway holding a lighted candle to observe a minute of silence and listen to the Last Post on the radio. It seems so very long ago just now. So does the landing at Gallipoli. The "war to end all war" turned out to be propaganda and in the century that followed Australians have been called to arms in conflicts all over the globe.

Today I am preparing to talk to the children in my Sunday School class. What should I say to them?


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## Aunt Bea (Apr 24, 2021)

_"They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe."_ - Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen


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## RnR (Apr 24, 2021)

*1915 – The Gallipoli campaign begins*.

The landing at Anzac Cove on Sunday, 25 April 1915 was part of the amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula by the forces of the British Empire, which began the land phase of the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War.

_The assault troops, mostly from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), landed at night on the western or Aegean Sea side of the peninsula. They were put ashore one mile north of their intended landing beach. In the darkness, the assault formations became mixed up, but the troops gradually made their way inland, under increasing opposition from the Ottoman Turkish defenders._

For the vast majority of the 16,000 Australians and New Zealanders who landed on that first day, this was their first experience of combat. By that evening, 2000 of them had been killed or wounded together with at least a similar number of Turkish casualties. The exact number of the day's casualties is not known.

*Since 1916 the anniversary of the landings on 25 April has been commemorated as Anzac Day.*

_Landing at Gallipoli. Sapper Fred Reynolds was the first to fall at Gallipoli. In the picture below of the Gallipoli landing, taken at 8.00am on 25 April 1915, Fred is the lone body lying on the beach._






_Part of the Australian 4th Battalion and the mules for the 26th (Jacob's) Indian Mountain Battery landing at 8 am. In the foreground is the staff of Colonel Henry Normand MacLaurin, 1st Infantry Brigade, of Sydney, who was killed in action on 27 April 1915. The officer with the rolled greatcoat over his shoulder is Major Francis Duncan Irvine, later Major Brigade Major, of Sydney, who was also killed on 27 April 1915. Nearer the water's edge, centre, is Captain Dennis Malcolm King, DSO, MC, Orderly Officer, later Major. The officer on the left, with his chinstrap down, is Lieutenant R G Hamilton, the Brigade Signal Officer. At the water's edge lies an Australian engineer, Sapper R Reynolds, the first to fall during the war. Transports can be seen in the background and two of the warships' steamboats are in the middle distance. The photograph was taken by Lance Corporal Arthur Robert Henry Joyner of 1st Division Signal Company, of Paddington NSW, who was later killed in action at Bazentin, France on 4 December, 1916. AWM A01090._

Gallipoli cost the Allies 141,000 casualties, of whom more than 44,150 died. Of the dead, 8709 were Australians, 2779 were New Zealanders, Great Britain and Ireland lost 21,255, France 10,000, India 1358 and the dead from Newfoundland numbered 49. The Turks suffered over 251,000 casualties, of whom 86,692 lost their lives.

*The Gallipoli campaign ended with an evacuation of allied troops beginning in December 1915. The next year Australian forces fought campaigns on the Western Front and in the Middle East. Throughout 1916 and 1917 losses on the Western Front were heavy and gains were small.*

_Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, France with the Villers–Bretonneux Australian National Memorial, the main memorial to Australian military personnel killed on the Western Front during World War I, at the far end. More._






_There are now more than 2,100 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery._

The fighting around Villers-Bretonneux in April resulted in: Australia 2473 casualties, Britain 9529 and France 3500. German losses were 8,000–10,400 men.

_The number of deaths as a result of service with Australian units since 1860 is 102,888 as derived from the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial, including:
• Boer War, South Africa 588
• First World War 61,571
• Second World War 39,653
• Korean War 340
• Vietnam War 521
• Afghanistan 43_

*Lest we forget.*


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## RnR (Apr 24, 2021)

*ANZAC Day march passing Australia House, London, on 25 April 1919.*

_This was apparently the first occasion on which troops were permitted to pass through London streets with fixed bayonets._


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## Dana (Apr 24, 2021)

*Lest  We  Forget*


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## RnR (Apr 24, 2021)

*Marching off to war ...*
_over a century ago 30,000 Anzac troops left the port of Albany in Western Australia bound for war in Gallipoli._






On 1 November 1914, 30,000 young Australians and New Zealanders departed from Albany in Western Australia on board a flotilla of ships bound for Egypt and the battlefields of the Great War. They had never heard of Gallipoli or the Somme and had no idea where they were headed and the fact that many would never return home.

_On average, 38 members of the Australian armed forces died per day during the 1,560 days of WW1. At 64.8%, the Australian casualty rate, proportionate to total embarkations, was among the highest of the war._


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## cdestroyer (Apr 24, 2021)

I salute the men from australia, new zealand who fought alongside their allies in all wars!


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## jujube (Apr 24, 2021)

I was at Gallipoli during the days of the 100th anniversary celebrations.  No ceremonies were going on that day, but it was very moving to walk the grounds, reading the inscriptions on the monuments and seeing the landing beach and battle sites.

One of the most moving memorials was engraved with the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk:

_Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well._

I understand there is a memorial at the Anzac Parade in Canberra with those words, also.


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## Warrigal (Apr 25, 2021)

Aunt Bea said:


> View attachment 161654
> _"They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
> Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
> They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
> They fell with their faces to the foe."_ - Laurence Binyon, For the Fallen


Two of my uncles have a place on that wall of remembrance in the Australian War Museum shrine. 
I place a poppy for each of them whenever I visit Canberra.
I never knew either of them because they died the year before I was born but they are not forgotten.


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