Respectful pilgrims see both sides now

Ranks of yellow-clad Australians stand out in the dawn service crowd at Anzac Cove, on Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula.
Photo: David Rose www.theage.com.au

THE young man tried to smuggle in a bottle of spirits inside a cardboard tube of potato chips. He even put chips on top — but he was outfoxed by a Turkish soldier who thought the tube felt unusually heavy.

The man parted with his alcohol in good humour, which was typical of a dawn service at Gallipoli that passed with no incidents or obvious drunkenness, no piles of rubbish — unlike last year — and a sense of goodwill in the quiet crowd of up to 11,000 people.

This year up to 3000 Turks, many of them young, waited through the night alongside Australians. A drum-roll in the cold pre-dawn signalled the beginning of a service marking the 91st anniversary of the day on which the first of 16,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed at Anzac Cove.

Temporary stands with 5000 seats gave a stadium feel to the natural amphitheatre wedged between the sea and the formidable heights of the outcrop known as the Sphinx, around which the soldiers had to climb.

The orderliness of the service demonstrated the event-staging skills of the Australian and New Zealand authorities, but it raised a question that will loom larger as the 100th Gallipoli anniversary approaches: can the spirit of the dawn service survive the growing crowds and the need to run it almost as a military operation in itself?

In 1984, 100 people attended. Although yesterday's numbers were, not surprisingly, lower than at the 90th anniversary service last year, Mark Sullivan, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, believes 40,000 could travel to Gallipoli for the 100th anniversary in 2015.

Such a crowd would present a huge environmental and logistical challenge. Any more than 40,000 would probably choke the peninsula, Mr Sullivan said.

In a trial run for 2015, when the crowd could be spread across three sites, big screens yesterday showed the dawn services at Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair.

As Turkish numbers grow at the ceremonies, authorities are taking pains to tell our former enemy's side of the story.

In his address, Australian Governor-General Michael Jeffery stressed the courage of the Turkish soldiers and their leader, Mustafa Kemal, as well as that of the Anzac troops.

Documentaries on Gallipoli, with Turkish subtitles, were shown before the service — in place of the Bee Gees and Eric Clapton videos that angered many veterans last year. And ABC host Andrew Denton conducted an interview with Turkish academic Kenan Celik as well as Australian historian Richard Reid.

The low-key event did not bother Sydney policeman Daniel Irwin, 28, who said he was thrilled by the ceremony.

"It's just kind of special being here," he said.

Asked why more young Australians were making the Gallipoli pilgrimage, his friend Angela Gale, who is working as a nanny in Switzerland, said: "Australians seem to be getting more patriotic." She wasn't sure why.

"The more that we travel, the more we realise how good a country we live in."

Turks are getting more patriotic, too, said Gallipoli farmer Salih Karabegek, 32, who has attended many dawn services.

"This is such a historical place, for us and for Australians. It gives you goose bumps," he said.

DAWN LANDING: A historic photograph of Allied troops landing at Anzac Cove in the early morning of April 25, 1915 – the birth of the Anzac legend.

No Turkish delight

Sunday Times.au - Perth,WA,Australia 23apr06

For 91 years, Australians have celebrated the Anzac legend. N. Murat Ersavci, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey in Australia, looks at Gallipoli from the Turkish side
 

AS a Turk, every time I visit Gallipoli and the Straits of the Dardanelles, I am reminded of the way in which history touches our lives.

Gallipoli touches my own in several ways. Both my wife and I are among those who lost members of their families.

Her great-grandfather Major Mehmet Himmet, from Crete, commanded the 2nd Battalion, 36th Regiment and died on the Suvla Front, at Anafartalar. A very young third lieutenant Lutfu Guvenc, my wife's grandfather, survived to later become his son-in-law.

My own grandfather and great-uncle were also veterans of that conflict.

Gallipoli was the place where, in the mid-14th century, the Ottomans first crossed from Anatolia into the Balkans. Earlier, Alexander the Great also crossed the straits. This region was where the Trojan War, that earlier epic of a horrid tangle of warfare, tragedy and brutality was transformed into heroism.

For me, the Gallipoli landings are a parallel transformation. They were war at its grimmest. We, as Turks, the invaded nation, of course see this with particular sharpness.

In 1915, Turkey was engaged in a life-and-death struggle for national survival. For more than 100 years, Western powers had discussed the partition of our country. Gallipoli was one of the moments when that danger was at its greatest.

I do not want to overemphasise this. Events turned out differently and the shadows went away, but Gallipoli was a potentially lethal invasion for Turkey and why we fought so hard.

But Gallipoli was also one of the ways in which modern Turkey found its way as a nation and proved it was going to stay a force to be reckoned with.

The struggle saw the birth of our national consciousness, just as it did for Australia and New Zealand. I think that is one of the reasons for the affinity between Turks and Australians and New Zealanders, which the Gallipoli story still arouses.

Gallipoli was the battlefield on which it became apparent that Turkey had again produced a military leader of genius in Mustafa Kemal, or Ataturk, as he later became known.

His successes foreshadowed victories against invading armies in Anatolia five or six years later, which were also crucial to our national survival.

Ataturk, himself, always portrayed the Gallipoli campaign as a stark life-and-death struggle. You cannot boast about a conflict in which all sides suffered terrible losses, but then somehow retain the dignity and heroism to transcend the horrors of war.

But in 1915, even to its own people, Turkey seemed to be a dying nation and memories of glorious military triumphs of the past were distant. Millions of people had been driven out of their homes in the Balkans and fled under most arduous conditions, without possessions, to safety in Turkey.

Those who escaped the Balkan Wars were the great-grandparents of about half Turkey's present population.

It is through their eyes that you must see the Gallipoli campaign, if you want to understand how Turks felt at the time.

Even the horrible conditions at the front – the mud, the hunger, the lack of almost everything – echoed what our people had already endured after the 1912 exodus from the Balkans.

These are stories every Turkish family remembers: a grandmother talking about the march from the Balkans; a grandfather telling how he was temporarily "buried" in mud at Gallipoli, but got up to fight on, when everyone around him was dying.

That explains why, apart from being upset at the needless deaths of 750,000 young men from so many countries, we feel such a strong spirit of "never again" when we think of Gallipoli. The Turkish Republic began out of those ashes, in that spirit. It meant a complete break with the past and all the suffering and disasters it had brought. I believe it succeeded.

Which is why not long after, Ataturk and his ministers were commemorating Gallipoli in a spirit similar to today.

It is why Ataturk, in a famous quote, described the fallen soldiers at Gallipoli who lie in Turkish soil as sons of our motherland, even though they were an invading force. His comment showed the need to build a new, better world.

It has been many decades since Ataturk uttered those words. In some ways we have built a better world since then, but in others we obviously have not yet succeeded and needless conflict continues. So the lessons of Gallipoli remain valid, even though it is now receding into a fairly distant past.

War is tragic and heroic, but it is also futile, brutal and unnecessary. Commemorating the dead and all that our armies suffered, helps prevent us from forgetting that truth.
http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,18893638%5E949,00.html

Reverence passes across generations

IT is just a block of wood, painted brown and green and bearing the numerals 3BN, but behind it is a heck of a story.

It has been carried proudly in every Anzac Day march since 1929, and passed reverently from one generation of diggers to the next - and it is about to pass to a new generation.

Bearing the colours of the 3rd Battalion, it was made - and carried - by a returned Anzac, John Hillier, of Five Dock. When John's mates all died he marched alone until 1980 when he passed the plaque on to Bill Jenkins, a veteran of the Second World War 3rd Battalion.

"He asked us to keep it going on Anzac Day and we have done that," said 85-year-old Bill, of Marsfield. "We will carry it as long as we can, and when we can't carry it any more we will pass it on to the descendants."

Yesterday, Bill met 11-year-old Blake Morgan, of Narrabeen, who will march on Tuesday as part of a newly included group, Descendants of First World War Veterans.

Blake's great-great-great-grandfather, Arthur John Kneller, served in the navy and his great-great-uncle, Pierce Morrissey, was killed at Lone Pine. "I am so proud of them and proud to be able to march with their medals," Blake said.

Britain's oldest World War One veteran honored
 

• Indepth coverage: Remembering Anzac
  A full wrap up of Australia's Anzac Day commemorations and the work of Australian troops.

Huge crowds remember the fallen and honour living

Across the generations … onlookers cheer the march yesterday.
Photo: Lee Besford

By Elicia Murray and Edmund Tadros Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
April 26, 2006
 

AS THE strains of the Last Post pierced the darkness, they gathered to remember the fallen.

Some wept quietly in the early morning chill; others bowed their heads in silence.

The passage of time left fewer veterans to attend yesterday's Anzac Day dawn service in Martin Place. But their numbers were boosted by thousands of young people, who comprised much of a crowd that filled three blocks and spilled into nearby streets.

Brendan Smith of Northbridge was among those who rose early to remember the dawn 91 years ago when the Anzacs first landed at Gallipoli. He met a group of old school friends from Sydney Church of England Grammar School's class of 1998 in what they hoped to make an annual trek.

"I think everyone likes Anzac Day for that whole idea of mateship," he said.

One of a group of three young women attending their first dawn service, Lauren Davies of Neutral Bay said the time was right to come.

"It just felt right to come and commemorate, maybe because there's a war going on at the moment," she said.

Ms Davies said she found the service moving, although she did not know of any family members who had fought.

Air Vice-Marshal John Quaife delivered the Anzac address, paying tribute to the men and women now serving in the Middle East and the Pacific. He also spoke of Private Jacob Kovco, the Australian soldier killed in Iraq last Friday.

As the ceremony ended, a light rain enveloped the Cenotaph.

In a nearby coffee shop Sergeant Hamilton "Bill" Bruin sat with his son and his son's fiancee.

Born just months after the 1915 landing, Mr Bruin was named after the British general Sir Ian Hamilton, who commanded the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. "I got rid of the Hamilton and [took] Bill instead," he said.

Later in the morning, crowds gathered more than 10-deep in some places to cheer those taking part in the Anzac Day march. More than 20,000 marched before an estimated crowd of 100,000.

Some of the loudest applause was reserved for the brigades for which no survivors were left to march, their places taken by horses without riders.

Lucy Goodlad, 8, held high a sign that she and her brother Charlie, 7, made the night before.

"It says 'Thank you brave soldiers'," Lucy said.

For Warren Sheaver, 57, there was a sense of vindication.

"I didn't march for the first 20 years after returning from Vietnam," he said. "I just wasn't interested. With all the protests I just stayed right away."

Mr Sheaver served with the 5th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment in Vietnam, but he was reluctant to talk about his time at war. "I don't think I have faced up to it," he said. "For me, today is about celebrating both the living and the dead."

At the Anzac memorial in Hyde Park South, the Reverend John Thompson, NSW Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, described the pioneering spirit of the Australian troops at Gallipoli.

"They never thought about giving up," he said. "They could do it. … They could match anything that was thrown against them. That is the Anzac spirit. That became the Australian spirit."

The Premier, Morris Iemma, said: "I'm delighted that young Australians are so keen to share the Anzac spirit."

The president of the NSW branch of the RSL, Don Rowe, said after the ceremony: "The young people understand why they are marching but they provide another perspective. They see it in a different light and use it as an inspiration for their own lives."

---

Salute those who served, not their descendants

Ranks of World War I and II veterans are being replenished by their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews and nieces.
Photo: Jason South

By Jonathan Green The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia  April 26, 2006
 

HENRY Green signed up on March 4, 1915. He was 20 and already a member of the militia, but in a sign of the cautious innocence of those times, he still needed a note from his father before being allowed to serve his country overseas. I have a copy of that single signed paragraph, thanks to the diligent hoarding of the National Archives.

"Sir, I herewith give my consent that my son Henry Thompson Green may join the Expeditionary Forces."

And so he went, boarding the troop ship Geelong that May.

My grandfather's war would take him first to Gallipoli and then the Somme and the battle for Pozieres. He fought to the last day of that famously fatal confrontation in the sodden France of August 1916, then came too close to an exploding shell, suffered massive damage to his right arm and leg and spent the next year in a Midlands hospital. He lost the arm, but made it home, only to die meekly of influenza in 1934.

Yesterday, grandson Jonathan Henry pinned miniature replicas of Henry Thompson's three campaign medals to his right breast and set out on an adventure at once parallel and comparatively trivial: his first Anzac Day march.

I was a direct descendant. I was entitled. I was keeping the legacy of Anzac alive. But I now know that marching was wrong. A mistake.

I had no doubts about taking a place at the dawn service, creeping through the frigid early dark towards the slightly denser black that marked the sandcastle silhouette of the Shrine; feeling right to be there, filled with nothing but a sad sense of awe and respect. Perhaps a pinch of pride.

Tony Charlton boomed disembodied from the trees — "… the whole world is the sepulchre of famous men …" — and camera flashes gave instants of flickering flesh to the scene, each shot like a muzzle blast, freezing a tableau of 30,000 faces watchfully patient on the forecourt.

This is a simple ceremony contrived around an eloquent silence. That's the only demand it makes: no uniform, no family connection, just meditative peace. "They fell with their faces to the foe. We shall remember them." And so it goes. The sweet phrases of Abide With Me shattered by rifle fire. The overwrought melodrama of the narration — "We are the dead" — mingling with the familiar poignancy of the bugle calls. And all of it done by 6.25, when the crowd pushes forward to mill, for hours more, on the Shrine steps.

The march is another thing altogether.

It began in 1916, when 400 or so soldiers, most wounded and recovering, marched — hobbled — from a marshalling point near Princes Bridge to attend a service at St Paul's.

By 1920 and the first years of grateful peace, it had become a procession to the MCG from Alexandra Gardens that included an eyes left as the column passed Parliament House.

In 1925, 10 years from the landing, Anzac Day became a public holiday. In 1946 came the biggest of the Melbourne marches, when men and women returning from World War II joined veterans of the Great War to march 20 abreast towards the Shrine from marshalling points that stretched back to Queensberry Street, Carlton.

Then, in the easy and slowly forgetful prosperity of the 1950s and the open, pacifist hostility of the '60s and '70s, the march and dawn service fell into neglected disfavour. In 1969, 3500 gathered by the Shrine at dawn. Only 14,500 regrouped later in the morning to march: veterans all, most of whom by now, 36 years on, are dead or fast closing on it.

This year, there were no survivors from the troops who served overseas in World War I. William Allan was the last, dead last year at 106. The Anzacs are gone, but the ceremonial and commemoration lingers on, propelled by a renewed sense of national fervour and affection.

Which is where we descendants come in. Should we claim the places of the fallen in marches across the country? What will become of Anzac when a parade to honour participants safe home from the gaping horrors of war becomes a celebratory carnival of a shared, grateful heritage at best once removed from the possibility of sudden and violent death?

A decision about the future of Anzac parades is pressing on us. The Victorian RSL estimated the average age of yesterday's veterans at 84 and yet it was one of the biggest — certainly the longest in duration — Melbourne marches of recent times.

Ranks have been replenished by the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews and nieces, all falling in step to swell the withering rumps of World War II units, edging into the frame behind the colours of Korea and Vietnam.

So joining in, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal winking in shiny miniature at my breast, seemed the right thing to do.

The parade's vanguard was almost an hour gone before our little troupe of three even inched forward a step from our holding position in the dank early morning gloom of Collins Street.

I had told the RSL that I wanted to march with the 27th Battalion, but neglected to specify a war. So here I was in the thick of World War II, looking for the battalion sign, searching past the 101 Heavy Mortar Company camped by Hugo Boss, past 4 Field Company Royal Australian Engineers at Saba Men, past 26 Battalion at the Body Shop, finding the 27th waiting by David Lawrence near the doors of the former Hotel Australia.

We inched forward, taking Collins Street 10 metres at a time, just the three of us with no regimental banner, only a Scout and a printed sign. We formed a little line abreast, and made the turn into Swanston Street just past 11am.

And there they were, thousands of people standing thick on both sides of the barricaded corridor that corralled the march, pushing close to us, intimate. Clapping filled the air.

"Good on you mate!" "Well done." Not me. How had I earned this? What sacrifice had I made that these people should show such open gratitude and affection? None. Nothing. I was only here through accident of birth.

A sense of hot shame grew as we made our way slowly towards the Shrine. The clapping followed us, relentless like a lapping wave. I couldn't meet their eyes. I wanted to veer right, leave the march and lose myself in the trees of Kings Domain.

If there is a truth in this march, it is in saluting the sacrifice of the veterans, a badge of honour that is earned by direct experience. It can't be inherited. And if the ranks slowly thin and die, if no new wars replenish them with men as scarred and troubled — as lucky — as these survivors, then the world will have become a far, far better, more peaceful, place.

For reflection on the loss and horror of war we can turn to the slow rising glow that fills the east each Anzac dawn. And leave the march of thankful triumph to the men and women who also marched away in fear and hope.

Large crowds honor ANZAC war dead

By Grant Holloway CNN, Sydney Tuesday, April 25, 2006

SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Thousands of Australians and New Zealanders have gathered across the globe to commemorate their war dead in annual ANZAC Day memorial services and marches.

The April 25 services mark the 91st anniversary of the ill-fated Gallipoli landing of the First World War during which more than 8,000 Australians and New Zealanders lost their lives and many thousands more were wounded.

Commemorations were held in cities and towns across Australia and New Zealand, as well as at Gallipoli in Turkey and other sites of conflict including the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vietnam.

Canberra's main dawn service attracted a crowd of 27,000 people, while a record 30,000 turned up in the western city of Perth.

An estimated 30,000 also attended services and marches in both Sydney and Melbourne.

This year's services were notable as the first at which there were no surviving Australian or New Zealand First World War active service veterans attending.

In the Australian capital of Canberra, Prime Minister John Howard announced the nation's War Memorial Museum and ANZAC Parade would be included on the National Heritage list, effectively preserving them from significant alteration or destruction.

In a statement released Tuesday, Howard said the listing recognized "the courage of those who served in our armed forces .... in both the field of conflict and, more recently, as part of peacekeeping missions in our region."

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Helen Clark said ANZAC Day was one of the most important dates on the national calendar.

"We who have not gone to war must find ways pf recognizing the service and sacrifice of those who have," Clark said in her ANZAC Day statement.

"Let us today, and every day, further honor the service of our veterans by our continued commitment to peace in the world."

The popularity of ANZAC Day memorials has been growing in recent years as a broader acknowledgment of the sacrifices made by both nations' armed forces in global conflicts.

And for many, the heroic, if futile, efforts of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the Great War represent a defining moment in determining the countries' nationhood.

Turkish patriots also consider the battle -- during which an estimated 250,000 Turks lost their lives -- as central to the creation of their national identity.

Thousands of younger Australians and New Zealanders now make a pilgrimage to the Gallipoli site for the memorial service held there as a rite of passage and demonstration of national pride.

Unlike previous years, the consumption of alcohol and the playing of popular music on the Turkish battlefield has been banned this year to help discourage unruly behavior.

Instead war documentaries were being shown on large open-air screens.

About 20,000 visitors attended last year's ceremony but organizers expected a drop this year, party due to a bird flu outbreak in Turkey and because many Australians will be traveling to Germany to watch their team compete in the soccer World Cup instead, The Associated Press reports.

Vive the riflemen

Thousands of French troops, most of them black Africans from the colonies, fought and died alongside the Anzacs at Gallipoli, writes D. D. McNicoll

Australian - Sydney,Australia  April 25, 2006

WHO were the men who fought and died on the blood-soaked slopes of Gallipoli? Every Australian knows the stories of the gallant Anzac Diggers and even of the British they fought beside. But what of the French?

More than 9800 French troops died fighting on those unforgiving hills and in those bloodstained gullies more than 90 years ago. The French casualties, both killed and injured, eclipsed the number of Australians who died, more than 8000.

The Gallipoli campaign was conceived by the British and French governments and planned by their generals, so it should come as no surprise that French troops were involved in the fighting.

But today few Australians are aware that the French were there; and even fewer know that most of the French troops were black tribesmen recruited mainly from the French west African colony of Senegal.

Les tirailleurs Senegalais, resplendent in their bright blue jackets, baggy white trousers and distinctive red kopis (brimless hats), were originally formed in 1857 on the orders of Napoleon III and by 1914 there were 14,000 tirailleurs (it translates as riflemen or infantry) in French west Africa and a further 15,000 stationed in Morocco.

When they were first formed, the regiments of black soldiers were made up of slaves who were brought back from their African owners by the French government.

But by 1905, the tirailleurs Senegalais were largely volunteers or former prisoners of war from various African countries who had swapped sides. They were successfully used as a police force across France's sprawling African colonies.

Many of the senior French officers in World War I had started their military careers as young colonial officers in charge of tirailleurs Senegalais regiments.

In those politically incorrect times, the rulers of the French army believed that black Africans were more suited to living and fighting in tropical conditions than white men.

French general Charles Mangin wrote a critically acclaimed book in which he said that Africans had a nervous system that was less developed than that of white men and were thus less sensitive to pain, making them ideal soldiers.

The gruesome events in the trenches on the Western Front swamped the French post-war consciousness and made the attack on Gallipoli a tiny sidelight in their history. The deaths of more than 30,000 of the 150,000 or so tirailleurs Senegalais who fought on the Western Front is well recorded but those who fought at Gallipoli are now all but forgotten, if not entirely written out of the campaign's history.

Most of the 9874 recorded French dead at Gallipoli were these colonial troops from Senegal, Algeria and Morocco but, in keeping with imperial French thinking of the time, they were written off as cannon fodder.

They had no war correspondents to record their sacrifices and heroism. Indeed, had it not been for the fact that a regiment of the famed French Foreign Legion also fought at Gallipoli, the involvement of what was known in France as La Force Noire in the campaign may not have been recorded.

At dawn on April 25, 1915, as the Australians and New Zealanders were landing at Anzac Cove on the western side of the Gallipoli Peninsula, the French landed three battalions, one from metropolitan France and two tirailleur battalions, at Kum Kale on the western shore of the Dardanelles, almost opposite Anzac Cove on the Asian side of the Canakkale Strait, also known as The Narrows.

The landing was far more successful than that at Anzac Cove and the French drove back the Turkish defenders to establish a wide beachhead by the time darkness enveloped the battlefield.

But, for reasons which are now lost to military historians, the French were withdrawn the following day and sent to reinforce the British and Indian troops at Cape Helles on the other side of the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the landing had been far less successful.

By April 27, six battalions of French troops, most of them tirailleurs, had landed at Cape Helles and taken up their positions on the right flank of the British position, perhaps 20km south of the ridges on which the Anzacs were fighting.

On the night of May 1, 21 Turkish battalions attacked the British and French positions, and succeeded in reaching the Allied trenches. The Turkish advance was only stopped by savage hand-to-hand fighting.

Four days later, the Australian 2nd Brigade and the New Zealand Infantry Brigade were sent to Helles to aid the British and French. The Turks attacked again on May 6 and the second battle of Krithia raged until May 8.

On June 4, the third battle of Krithia saw a slight advance by the Allies, but the cost was high. More than 6500 Australian, British and French troops were killed, and more than 9000 Turkish troops died.

On June 21, the French forces attacked the heavily defended Haricot Redoubt at Helles and captured it. But the casualties were horrific. More than 2500 French and more than 6000 Turks died.

In early July, the Turks again attacked the Allied positions at Cape Helles, the first attack coming on July 2 and the main attack on July 4. Both were beaten back and the Turks lost more than 16,000 men.

The stench of decomposing bodies in the no-man's-land between the Allied and Turkish trenches was overwhelming, and on July 10 the Turks requested an armistice so they could bury their dead. The Allied commanders, whose headquarters was well removed from the stomach-churning smell, refused the request.

In late September 1915, the Allied offensive against the German forces in France began and on October 3 the 2nd French Division was evacuated from Suvla to the Greek port of Salonika.

The best record of the French fighting at Gallipoli can be found in the diaries of an Englishman, A.R. Cooper, who joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914 at the age of 15. Having previously run away to sea, Cooper decided to hide his true identity and he enlisted and served under the name Cornelis Jean de Bruin.

De Bruin wrote: "On April 28, 1915, we landed on Gallipoli from the ship Petite Savoie. We went ashore on V beach just beside the River Clyde, the ship from which the British had landed with rafts a few days before. The sea was full of dead bodies. The English had cleared the way and our landing was without incident, but soon the Turks started shelling from Fort Chanak. It was my first experience of shellfire and I did not like it very much.

"In the afternoon of the 29th the real fighting began. We were holding the right of the line furthest from the sea with the British on our left. It was chiefly hand-to-hand bayonet fighting and we were up against what seemed to be an inexhaustible force of Turks. It was terrible to see the way our men were slaughtered. We lost about half the battalion and three-quarters of our officers were killed."

De Bruin wrote that between battles he often went to the British lines to do a bit of scrounging for food, liquor or cigarettes. He was generally greeted warmly by the British soldiers who were surprised to see an Englishman in the uniform of the Foreign Legion.

He also recorded sorties out into no-man's-land to scrounge supplies from the field of corpses.

"One of our greatest needs was cigarettes and, after a battle, certain of us used to volunteer to creep out and search the dead Turks for tobacco of which they seemed to have plenty. One night I found a nice big packet of tobacco in the coat pocket of a dead Turk. On the way back to our lines I rolled myself a cigarette but at the first puff I was nearly sick. God knows how long that Turk had lain out there but the tobacco had become tainted by his decaying body and was putrid. I rolled about 20 cigarettes and distributed them to the men in my company, who were duly grateful, until they tried to smoke them!"

De Bruin, who was awarded France's highest bravery decoration, the Croix de Guerre, for his actions during the Turkish attack on May 1, didn't mind recording the grim reality of war.

"Another imperturbable character in our company was an Austrian. He had joined the Legion as a Swiss. He was an excellent cook, in fact he had been a chef at the Hotel Maurice in Paris.

"One day he was making soup when a shell killed a legionnaire named Keller. A great piece of his flesh was thrown into the stock pot. The Austrian simply cut it up and cooked it in the soup. Rations were neither plentiful nor palatable and we all ate that soup, which tasted of pork, with a relish. When, afterwards, he told us what he had done, many of the men were sick."

Eventually all the French troops were withdrawn from Gallipoli and shipped to France where they were immediately thrown into the fight against the Germans.

By the time the war ended in November 1918, the French Government had recruited more than 212,000 Africans into its armed forces.

From ugly war good may come: G-G

GOVERNOR-General Michael Jeffery has called for Australians to promote peace and tolerance instead of violence.

Major-General Jeffery, speaking from Gallipoli where he is attending Anzac Day services, said war was a filthy business.

"If we can all work harder to try to resolve our differences through peaceful means, through being more caring for one another ... I think that would make for a much happier world," Maj-Gen Jeffery said to Southern Cross Broadcasting.

He said two positives had come out of the bloody battle for the Dardanelles, which gave birth to the Anzac legend.

"Firstly, the development of our own national ethos based on those wonderful qualities of courage, endurance and mateship but also for the Turks, I think the rebirth of their own national pride and sense of identity," Maj-Gen Jeffery said.

This is the first time the former commander of the Special Air Service has visited Gallipoli.

"The big impression that one gets in walking around these beautifully kept memorials and cemeteries and seeing the battle sites themselves is the sense of peace and tranquillity that exists now," he said.

"As a soldier I guess you have some understanding, possibly some personal experience, at least in part, of what soldiers of both sides went through."

Earlier, he said visitors to Gallipoli were reminded that enduring good could sometimes come from the ugliness and futility of war.

Speaking to a gathering at Lone Pine, he recounted the hell of bloody fighting for the strategic post and wondered how men endured what they did.

"Ever since 1915 we have talked about something called the spirit of Anzac, something in the character of the men that kept them going, who did not give up, who did not turn and run," he said.

"It was a combination of individual and group courage, pride in unit, determination and resilience – all of it laced with Aussie humour."

He said war must never be glorified.

"But from Lone Pine and the broader canvas of the Gallipoli campaign came two powerful and enduring positives," Maj-Gen Jeffery said.

"For Australia, the birth of a proud national ethos and for Turkey, the rise of a great military commander and the father of the modern Republic of Turkey in Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

"Today, we commemorate outstanding courage and strength of character in the face of incredible and sustained adversity.

"May this wonderful memorial continue to inspire all who pass this way, that from the ugliness and futility of war can sometimes flow an enduring good.

"Let us never forget."

Editorial: The Anzac spirt

Young Australians will carry on the April 25 tradition

PLAYING of the Last Post at dawn services in cities and country towns around the nation to mark Anzac Day will have special poignancy this morning. Just one Australian World War I veteran survives. John Campbell Ross, 107, a Victorian, enlisted in the army in February 1918 but did not serve overseas. Mr Ross was 18 when he joined up, and is now the last link with a war that saw nearly 62,000 killed and 137,000 wounded. But while the 421,802 Diggers who fought at Gallipoli, on the Western Front and in the Middle East have now all died, the place names where they saw bloody battle and fell in their tens of thousands remain very much alive for younger generations. Anzac Cove, Lone Pine, the Nek, the Somme, Bullecourt, Villers-Bretonneux, Pozieres, Ypres, Amiens and many more battlefields are ingrained in the national consciousness. The fact that Australian Diggers are on duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Solomons adds a sombre note to the marking of this year's Anzac Day. As Australians reflect today on the commitment and sacrifice involved in serving one's country, they will be thinking of the families of the nine Australian service people who died serving humanity in the Sea King helicopter crash in Indonesia in March last year, of Australian Protective Services officer Adam Dunning, 26, who was shot on patrol in Honiara in December 2004 and of Private Jake Kovco, 25, who died of a gunshot wound in Baghdad on Friday, the first Digger to fall in the Iraq conflict.

Concerns expressed recently about the tradition of observing Anzac Day fading with the passing of Australia's World War II veterans, who are now approaching their nineties, are unfounded. It is true that in the aftermath of the anti-war demonstrations over Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, interest in Anzac Day, mainly among among baby boomers, reached its nadir. On April 26, 1975, The Australian covered the marking of Anzac Day in a single story; in 1985, reports of anti-war protests were included in its coverage. Two decades later, however, disdain for Anzac Day among the young is a thing of the past. Thousands of young Australians flock to Anzac Cove on April 25 every year, while enthusiasm is increasing for revisiting other legendary battlefields such as France, Tobruk and the Kokoda Track, and for paying homage at sites such as Sandakan in North Borneo, where hundreds of Australian prisoners of war perished in death marches forced by the Japanese.

Record crowds line the streets for Anzac parades and increasing numbers of children are joining the thinning ranks of veterans, donning their grandfathers' service medals with pride. It is understandable that some Diggers are unsettled by the involvement of children, fearing their participation injects a carnival element into what is traditionally a solemn occasion for remembering fallen mates. These concerns must be taken seriously and handled sensitively. At the same time, Anzac Day has broadened in recent years into an occasion honouring not only the contribution of Australian servicemen and women overseas and on the home front in the world wars, but in a range of conflicts going back to the Sudan war of 1885. Few today would be aware that more than 16,000 Australians fought in the Boer War from 1899-1902, nearly as many as served in Korea in 1950-53. Even fewer would be aware of Australia's role in the 1962-66 confrontation, or Konfrontasi, between Malaysia and Indonesia over the future of Borneo. Australians have also served in conflicts in Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, Afghanistan and in both Gulf wars, and in peacekeeping missions such as the present assignment in Solomon Islands and the recently completed one to East Timor.

The tally of more than 100,000 Australians killed in the 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars dwarfs the 1,500 killed in action in less epic battles. But if the younger generation sees embodied in the 8,000 Diggers who fell at Gallipoli the core Australian ideals of equality, mateship, a fair go and refusing to be bound mindlessly by hierarchy and tradition, these characteristics equally flourished among Australians on other battlefields. Maintaining the Anzac Day tradition will require participation by veterans' descendants. It is up to the Returned Services League to negotiate their involvement in a way that does not turn the occasion into a lighthearted family outing.

The enthusiasm of Australia's young for commemorating the sacrifices of previous generations of Diggers has not translated into long queues at army recruitment offices. Last year, the defence force missed its recruitment goal by 1000. If current trends continue, the defence force will fall to 48,500 personnel by 2010. This presents a real challenge to planners looking to bulk up the already-stretched Australian military to 55,000 personnel. To stem the tide, military planners have discussed loosening entry standards, including fitness requirements and the barring of potential recruits who admit to having tried illegal drugs in the past. The ADF also appears poised to take greater advantage of the Australian Defence Force Cadets program after internal studies found the Cadets to be an under-utilised resource. The Howard Government is also poised to return to the old days of the Ready Reserve, which it scrapped 10 years ago. In a tacit admission that ditching the elite force was a mistake, next month's federal budget is expected to include funds for a 3000-member "High Readiness Reserve". Reservists in this group will receive higher pay and better training and will, in return, be expected to be able to deploy to trouble spots within 30 days.

April 25 is not just about commemorating a disastrously managed landing by raw Australian recruits on the coast of Turkey. And it is not about glorifying war. It is, rather, about reflecting on the spirit of Anzac that lives on and inspires Australians. Diggers and Turkish soldiers sharing rations between trenches in 1915 exemplified this humanity, which has engendered a close relationship between Australians and Turkish people. More than 86,000 Turks died at Gallipoli, yet Kemal Ataturk, the Turkish commander and founder of modern Turkey, pledged that the Australians who died at Anzac Cove would lie there in honour. It remains, quite simply, the one day of the year.

Speaker Speech to Dawn Service ANZAC Cove

Tuesday, 25 April 2006, 3:31 pm
Speech: New Zealand Government

HON MARGARET WILSON
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NEW ZEALAND

Speech to Dawn Service-ANZAC Cove
Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey

Tuesday 25 April 2006

E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga tangata o nga hau e wha, e huihui nei
(To the authorities, languages and people from the four winds assembled here)

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Merhaba and greetings
(Greetings, greetings and greetings to you all, merhaba)

Few New Zealand families have not been touched by loss of life, or injury in wars like that here at Gallipoli - a place so remote that many would not have heard of it before the shells rained down on a generation of young men seeking adventure in a far off land. Gallipoli scarred our hearts and caused immense grief.

For a country of its size – just over 1 million in 1914 – New Zealand’s contribution to World War 1 was massive.

Nearly 20 per cent of the eligible manpower was recruited. One hundred thousand men were sent overseas – of those 18,000 were killed and more than 41,000 wounded. Of the British countries, only the UK’s proportion was higher.

In cities, towns and villages across the country, war memorials went up to list those killed. Some small communities lost an entire generation of young men, some families all their sons. And we know Turkish families and communities also suffered greatly.

As one historian noted, the next generation did not need to be told that the angel of death had passed over the land: they had heard the beating of its wings.

ANZAC Day, marking the anniversary of that first Australian and New Zealand landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula at dawn 91 years ago today, was the occasion that both countries chose to commemorate all their dead from the war – and subsequently all wars.

New Zealand and Australian communities all over the world will be gathering on this day.

100 years ago, New Zealanders knew little of Turkey and Turkey knew little about New Zealand.

Then came what was arguably the most traumatic event in the history of my country. The ANZACs were transported to Lemnos in the Aegean, and from there to Gallipoli for a major assault on the Dardanelles, the Hellespont of the ancient world.

This operation was designed to open the strait to the British and French navies to allow an attack on Istanbul and relieve Turkish military pressure on Russia.

From the outset, the ANZAC part of the Gallipoli landings went terribly wrong. While British troops landed at Cape Helles, the ANZACs began landing where the terrain was much less forbidding. The Australians went ashore first, followed later in the morning by the New Zealanders, at a place just metres from where we are standing and which we now know as ANZAC Cove.

As the ANZACs clambered up these steep slopes above the cove and moved inland, they encountered troops of the Turkish Army’s 19th Division commanded by Mustafa Kemal Bey, later known as Kemal Ataturk, founder and father of the post-war Turkish Republic.

The combination of rugged terrain and determined defenders proved insurmountable. The Australians and New Zealanders were halted and driven back. Their losses were high – one in five of the 3,000 New Zealanders who landed that day became casualties.

By the end of the day the ANZACs were hemmed into a tiny area. As the weeks went by, conditions deteriorated until they were as close to hell as men could conceive.

The cost to New Zealand was 2721 dead and 4752 wounded out of a total of 8450 men – a staggering 88 per cent. The remains of those killed were left here; two-thirds were either never found or remained unidentified.

After the battle the leadership, compassion and generosity articulated by Ataturk to what were once the enemy has inspired three generations of New Zealanders and Turkish. It has sparked the pilgrimage by thousands of New Zealanders and Australians, young and old, who are here today as in previous years to honour our Gallipoli dead.

More and more Turkish make the trip to New Zealand and Australia to renew acquaintances and see for themselves the land where those they saw as invaders came from.

The relationship between NZ and Turkey runs deeper than honouring our dead, but there is little doubt in my mind that the foundations for an enduring relationship were laid here on this peninsula where so many died.

As we gather today, it is instructive to let our minds drift back to those dreadful scenes as wartime enemies faced each other.

Who would have thought that we could put that behind us and embrace one another in friendship, respect and admiration. This must provide some hope for the modern day peacekeepers of our three nations and gives the lie to the claim by some that ‘once an enemy, always an enemy’.

Gallipoli had a seminal effect on the development of our character as a people. It is impossible for any one of us to view these events without pride and painful sympathy.

Today we pray that our nation, our soldiers and our future generations will be spared the terrible fate of those New Zealanders who died for us and for our country. It is a day when we think of and thank a new generation of young men and women who serve our country around the world. We remember not only those who died, but also their friends and comrades, their families, their sons and daughters, their mothers and fathers.

And today we renew our commitment to protecting and promoting peace at home and in those places around the world where we work to help achieve that elusive dream.

As the successors and descendants of the soldiers who fought here, it is our responsibility and privilege to reflect on their service and sacrifice.

We, who benefit from their selfless acts of courage in a bitter, bloody and tragic campaign, will not forget their sacrifice.

We will remember them.

Nō reira, ki a koutou kei konei, kei te wā kainga hoki
(And so to you here and at home as well)

tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā ano tātou koutou
(Greetings, greetings and greetings to us all once again)

Teşekkür ederim and thank you very much.

Day to remember
Bega District News - Bega,New South Wales,Australia Monday, 24 April 2006

THE Member for Eden Monaro, Gary Nairn, is encouraging residents and their children to spend time on Anzac Day (today) reflecting on the sacrifice servicemen and women have made in defending Australia.

Mr Nairn said the Anzac legend was born on April 25, 1915, when Australian and New Zealand troops landed on the shores of Gallipoli.

By the end of that day, 2,000 soldiers lay dead or wounded.

Some eight months later, troops were evacuated without having achieved their original objective of capturing the Dardanelles.

Some 8,000 Australians had been killed.

"Those who served at Gallipoli founded a tradition of courage, tenacity and mateship that has continued to be shown by Australians who have served in subsequent conflicts," Mr Nairn said.

He said it was important that Australians remembered all those who served and died - not just at Gallipoli, but in the two World Wars, in Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts and peace operations.

"Even today Australians are serving across the globe, including in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Anzac Day is our chance to let our servicemen and women - past and present - know that their service and sacrifice is remembered, appreciated and honoured."

A legend wins the culture wars

The Anzac story continues to appeal because it has always been based on fact, writes Gerard Henderson.

Lest we forget ... cemetery and memorial to those who fell in the fierce Anzac Day battle for the French town of Villers Bretonneux in 1918.

They were heroes

April 23 2006

Exactly three years after the famous Gallipoli landing of 1915, another group of Australian soldiers fought a fierce battle on the Western Front for the village of Villers Bretonneux. Mark Day reports

WHEN Australians gather at dawn on Tuesday to remember those who paid the supreme sacrifice for our freedom, most will think of the landing at Gallipoli on the morning of April 25, 1915.

Few will know that exactly three years later, in the muddy fields of northern France, Australian soldiers were at the centre of one of the war's fiercest battles that cost three times the lives of the Gallipoli landing.

This was Australia's other Anzac Day and it turned the tide of the war.

Australian forces at Villers Bretonneux on April 25, 1918, helped break the four-year stalemate of the Western Front – and marked the beginning of the end for the Germans, who surrendered six months later.

The importance of the Villers Bretonneux battle has been well documented, but its coincidental association with Anzac Day has not.

On the moonlit night of April 24, 1918, when Australian troops swung into action against the Germans, there was no spirit of Anzac Day – no legend on which to build a nation's pride; no tradition of paying respect on that day to all members of the armed forces who have fought for us in all wars; and no sense that the day would come to mark the emergence of Australia as a nation.

On that night there was just one objective – to throw the Germans out of the strategic little village they had captured days earlier.

Three days later, with Villers Bretonneux back in Allied hands, 2473 Australians were dead, along with 9529 British and 10,400 German soldiers. This compares with 643 Australians dead in the first five days of the Gallipoli landing.

Today, Villers Bretonneux is the site of Australia's biggest overseas war memorial, paying tribute to the fighting men who died on the Western front.

A white sandstone cross and a 32m tower overlook the battlefields of 90 years ago. Below the tower is a wall with the names of those who died in the action. Bright red poppies – cloth on stalks of wire – are pushed into the gaps between the stones, mute reminders of lost loves and lives.

The site is impeccably maintained, its lawns trimmed, and the roses planted among the endless lines of headstones, neatly pruned.

The size, solemnity and solitude of the memorial overwhelm many Australian visitors. It is enough to be walking among the dead, but a sign, etched into stone, grips the throat: 11,000 Australians who fell in France and Flanders have no known grave.

The Western Front stretched 700km from Belgium to Switzerland and was the scene of terrible trench warfare, with mud, mustard gas and disease as dangerous to human life as the artillery and bullets that flew back and forth across No Man's Land.

In four years of fighting, the British and German lines changed little until the last few months.

In 1916, Australians entered the Western Front with 180,000 men – three times the number of those who served at Gallipoli – and featured in many battles.

Early in April 1918, men from the 2nd Australian Division were sent from Dernancourt south to Villers Bretonneux to relieve battle-weary British forces.

They arrived in time to find the small village had been taken by the Germans, who saw it as a strategic objective in their advance on the major regional centre of Amiens.

Immediately the order came from High Command: it must be recaptured.

The 13th and 15th brigades of the Australian 51st Battalion were ordered in. Both brigades were commanded by outstanding soldiers – Brig-Gen Harold "Pompey" Elliott and Brig-Gen (later Sir) William Glasgow.

Elliott and Glasgow were instrumental in changing the orders for attack. Instead of a full-frontal assault of the kind that had led to the Western Front stalemate, Elliott pressed for a night attack.

He argued the light of a full moon would be enough for his troops, but the lack of daylight would hinder the German gunners.

Glasgow managed to convince Elliott his basic plan of attack was flawed and needed changes. Elliott agreed and historians later said that without Elliott's plan to use the cover of night and Glasgow's revised strategies, the assault could not have succeeded.

The time to unleash the assault was set for 10pm on April 24.

According to the official history of the action, Capt Billy Harburn, a bank clerk from Cottesloe, told his men: "Nothing is to stop you reaching your goal. Kill every bloody German you see; we don't want any prisoners. God bless you."

As Harburn's men advanced, cloud covered the moon. They groped about in the dark until the Germans sent up flares.

Harburn and his men came under fire from a wooded area to their left. Pinned down, Sgt Charlie Stokes and Lt Clifford Sadlier, both West Australians, decided the only way through was to take out the Germans' machinegun positions in the woods.

Sadlier's attack was extraordinarily bold. He single-handedly took out several machinegun positions by throwing grenades and shooting the German gunners.

Stokes was shot in a leg, but continued to fight.

The official history noted: "By this audacious attack all the machineguns along the edge of the wood were silenced and a great danger was removed from the flank of the advancing brigade."

Sadlier and Stokes were recommended for the Victoria Cross, the highest bravery award, but authorities controversially awarded the medal to Sadlier alone. Stokes had to make do with the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

As the fighting progressed, British and Australian troops encircled Villers Bretonneux, cutting off the Germans. An Australian platoon spotted an enemy group and the order was given to charge.

"There went up from the unleashed line (of men) a shout – a savage, eager yell of which every narrative speaks – and the Australians made straight for the enemy," according to the official records.

"From that instant there was no holding the attack. The bloodthirsty cry was caught up again and again along the line. For the time being the men had thrown off the restraints of civilised intercourse and were what the bayonet instructors of all armies aimed at producing – primitive, savage men. They had not had such a feast with their bayonets before."

One soldier, Sgt R.A. Fynch, of Fitzroy, Victoria, wrote: "With a ferocious roar and the cry of `Into the bastards, boys', we were down on them before the boche realised what had happened.

"The boche was at our mercy. They screamed for mercy, but there were too many machineguns around to show them any consideration.

"With a cheer that would have turned a tribe of Red Indians green with envy, we `hopped the bags' (jumping over a parapet) and the night was turned into day by flares and a terrific machinegun barrage, but in very few instances did the enemy put up a fight and he was quickly dealt with.

"Every man was in his glee and old scores were wiped out two or three times over."

The official history of the action records this encounter as one of "the wildest in the experience of the Australian infantry", ranking alongside the Gallipoli landing for its ferocity.

By dawn on April 25, the British and Australian forces had almost reached their objectives and had the Germans on the run. But fierce fighting continued on various fronts for two days, until the battle was over on April 27.

The 13th Brigade had lost 1009 men and the 15th lost 455. Other units took the Australian total to 2473 dead. One of those was Frederick Henry Wallwork, 20, from Fremantle.

On November 11, 1918, their work was finally recognised in the armistice, and the turning point was seen to be the blood-soaked fields still today dotted with cemeteries.
http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,18893640%255E949,00.html

Time of pride and sorrow swells the nation's heart

First parade ... the soldiers of the 1916 Anzac Day march.
Photo: Fairfax Library

A Rare Bond Between Our Countries

But as we reflect on the "Anzac Spirit", we must contemplate also the importance of Gallipoli to the people of Turkey. As the Turkish ambassador to Australia Murat Ersavci writes in today's Sunday Mail, the campaign was a defining moment in Turkish history and the emergence of a new nationhood.

Queensland Sunday Mail - Brisbane,Queensland,Australia April 23, 2006
As we remember all those who have gone to battle in service of this country, so many of whom never returned, Gallipoli will be central to the commemorations

The Anzac tradition lives on

ARPIL 23 2006

THE Anzac spirit and tradition grows stronger every year. The ranks of veterans may be thinning, but the crowds applauding their sacrifice grow bigger – and younger – every year.

Anzac Day is not a celebration of military might or conquest. Nor does it glorify war. April 25 is a day when we remember the achievements of ordinary Australians, most of them volunteers, who went to war overseas.

During World War I, Australia's population was barely five million. We lost 60,000 men and youths in the Great War.

The Anzacs fought for freedom and democracy. That these ideals are not lost on Australians today, particularly in an age of materialism and a strong economy, says a lot about this nation.

A strong turnout on April 25 would suggest Australians are becoming more patriotic.

Though Gallipoli was a battle we lost, some of the ideals of the first Anzacs have endured.

Australians still believe that authority must be earned, hard work equals prosperity, everyone has a right to a fair go and that you stick by your mates through thick and thin.

At Gallipoli, Simpson and his donkey symbolised the Anzac legend and spirit.

How strange then that Simpson – born John Kirkpatrick – was English and a deserter. While serving in the British merchant navy, he jumped ship in New South Wales and later joined the Australian Army, using a false name.

Ironically, such a deed would have made him an illegal immigrant in modern Australia. Simpson died a hero, fighting for Australia at Gallipoli.

Anzac Day is also a time to remember our troops serving today, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only on Friday, an Australian soldier was killed while on duty in Iraq.

Our servicemen and women are a long way from their families and, unlike many Australians on Tuesday, will have little or no time to relax.

Like the Diggers who fought for our freedom at Gallipoli, we should not forget those defending us now from tyrants and terrorists.
http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,18895300%5E15470,00.html

Plan for Anzac 'day of peace'

April 21, 2006 http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au

ENTHUSIASM for Anzac Day shouldn't be allowed to slide into a renewed willingness to go to war, a doctors' peace group has warned.

The Medical Association for the Prevention of War also proposed that Anzac Day eventually be transformed into a national "day of peace" as the old diggers passed on.

The association's national secretary Carole Wigg said she was concerned the powerful emotions and symbolism of Anzac Day on April 25, and to a lesser extent Remembrance Day on November 11, could be harnessed to support Australia's engagement in new conflicts.

Dr Wigg warned the revival in popularity for Anzac Day commemorations could cloud people's judgment about going to war. "There's a sort of unthinkingness about what war is," she said.

"The warm and fuzzies that go with remembering what was a huge sacrifice get transferred.

"So then we don't worry so much the next time there's a war, it's (seen as) also great and glorious.

"That war should be unthinkable doesn't equate with getting enthusiastic about Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.

"Remember the message from the soldiers which ... is loud and clear: don't let it happen again."

Dr Wigg, a general practitioner who specialises in family therapy, called for Anzac Day to instead become recognised as a day of peace in years to come.

"It would be nicer if further (sic) generations were having a march to remember never to have a war again," she said.

Dr Wigg said she was "not at all against remembering the huge sacrifices" made by Australian troops in earlier wars but said "we don't want to repeat it".

Victorian RSL president Major-General David McLachlan denied the strong feelings associated with Anzac Day would lapse into a new fervour for war.

"I don't believe in any way at all that Anzac Day is there to glorify war," he said today.

"The people who are most anti-war are people who are veterans and have suffered as a consequence of war.

"Anzac Day is there to recognise and commemorate the incredible contribution that's been made to our democracy and freedom by our forefathers and foremothers."

Major-General Mclachlan traced the resurgent popularity of Anzac commemorations to the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in 1995.

As well, young Australians were becoming more aware of and more grateful for the sacrifices made by their predecessors to achieve Australia's current way of life.

People who visited war sites, such as Gallipoli, the Western Front and the Kokoda Track, came away with an "incredible feeling of patriotism and pride".

He predicted this year's Anzac Day dawn service would attract an even bigger crowd than the 20,000 at last year's event at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.

Security upgraded at Anzac Cove

Pilgrims told: no booze or Bee Gees
By Jason Koutsoukis, Canberra April 23, 2006

Anzac Day to honour mateship

April 22, 2006  www.smh.com.au

Mateship will be a central theme of Anzac Day commemorations around Australia this week, which organisers expect large crowds to attend.

Australians will pause on Tuesday to remember the sacrifices of those who died in the line of duty, 91 years after the original Anzacs landed at Gallipoli.

This year's commemorations come just days after an Australian soldier accidentally fatally shot himself while maintaining his rifle in Baghdad on Friday.

Thousands of people are expected to flock to veterans' Anzac Day marches and parades in major cities and towns throughout Australia.

The Defence Department says about 1,500 Australian servicemen and women are taking part in military and humanitarian operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Bougainville, the Middle East, the Sinai, Pakistan, and in the global war on terror.

RSL national president Bill Crews on Saturday said he expected young Australians to turn out in large numbers at Anzac Day services, which would be much the same as those in recent years.

Major General Crews said many Australians were searching for a sense of national identity and were inspired by the Anzacs' spirit and bravery.

"We are expecting increasing numbers, as has been the trend in recent years, particularly among young Australians coming out and looking for a sense of national identity," he said.

"They're wanting to understand more clearly what this has been about and acknowledge the sacrifices of those who have gone before us."

Maj Gen Crews said the RSL wanted this year's Anzac Day ceremonies to deliver an important message of mateship.

"The mateship that was demonstrated by the Anzacs - that can actually be carried out in our everyday lives," he said.

"The way we treat each other, help one another, the way we extend dignity to those in the community."

Australian Defence Association executive director Neil James urged people to think of Australian soldiers serving in current military operations around the world.

"People should commemorate the sacrifices made in the past but they should also think about the sacrifices being made in the present," Mr James said.

"Australian service men and women are still out there doing these things for the country."

Legacy, a charity which helps the families of Australian service personnel, will distribute sprigs of rosemary in memory of soldiers who died in combat.

Rosemary was symbolic for Australia because it was found growing wild on the Gallipoli peninsula, Legacy president Lawrie Wright said.

"Legacy was founded on the mateship of veterans and dedicated to the welfare of the families of our fallen servicemen and women," he said.

The forgotten veterans of World War II

Now that another Anzac Day march (and big football clash) is upon us, it is an opportune time to map popular Australian rankings of military virtue. On top, of course, is Gallipoli, obsessively promoted as the national foundational narrative. Below it - Kokoda? Tobruk? The Somme? Controversial Vietnam lurks down near the bottom of the ladder.

But the wooden spoon goes to the some 45,000 Australians - plus the hundreds of dependants who accompanied them on their tour of duty - who overall comprised the Australian component of "BCOF", the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in postwar Japan.

At a time when Australia is again engaged in a US-led military occupation of a "renegade" non-Western nation defeated in war, the occupation of Japan bristles with contemporary relevance. Politically and diplomatically, it was a crucial moment in Australian international relations, which heralded our willing enmeshment in postwar American geopolitics.

Yet Australia's assertive leadership of the Commonwealth force in Japan was also the seminal expression of an independent determination to influence Asia-Pacific regional affairs. It was a major military commitment lasting several years.

Albeit in a non-combat environment, the Australian contingent was numerically greater than that which fought in Vietnam, and dwarfs the present force in Iraq. Yet BCOF still goes by the name "the Forgotten Force".

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Australian arrival in Japan to demilitarise and democratise the old antagonist - but the occasion has passed unnoticed.

Overshadowed by the figure of the swaggering but magnanimous American GI, distributing chocolate and chewing gum to awestruck Japanese children, BCOF servicemen have always suffered an image problem.

Australians had forgiven the digger of earlier wars for his notorious boozing and womanising, taking it as evidence of his cheerful native larrikinism. The "Occupationnaires" did not fare so well.

Vaulting rates of venereal disease in the Australian contingent fuelled early suspicions that they were debauched malingerers on a paid holiday.

In the postwar atmosphere of vengeance towards the Japanese, as horrifying stories of their brutal mistreatment of POWs in the camps of South-East Asia continued to surface, public sentiment was affronted by the fact that Australians were playing a constructive part in the rebuilding of Japan.

BCOF veterans returned home to find themselves shunned by the RSL, having not proved their mettle in the culturally sanctioned way, on the field of battle, and socially ostracised as well for having consorted with the despised Japanese.

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G-G inspired by the Anzac experience

Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent April 24, 2006 www.theaustralian.news.com.au

GOVERNOR-GENERAL Michael Jeffery last night declared his first visit to Anzac Cove an awe-inspiring experience.

The former army major general joined thousands of young Australians and other tourists for the pilgrimage to the redeveloped site of the Anzacs' 1915 landing.

"I think young Australians are recognising that so much of our national ethos and identity are bound up in these beaches," Major General Jeffery said.

As the Governor-General toured the first Anzac cemetery, on the beach at Ari Burnu, sound checks drifted across the waters from the nearby site of tomorrow's dawn service.

The traditional site has been transformed for the first time with 5000 plastic seats in large stands, which have turned the small cove into a temporary stadium.

This year's arrangements build on last year's experience, when wooden seats were used for a record crowd to mark the 90th anniversary.

While a smaller number is expected this year, Australian and Turkish officials are already preparing for the centenary event by trying out a system of using large video screens to allow people to follow several ceremonies being conducted on Anzac Day without needing to trek around the peninsula.

Officials are also clamping down much more heavily than before on alcohol at the site.

The Minister for Veteran Affairs, Bruce Billson, said he was confident that visitors would cut down on the drinking that has led to criticism of the crowd's behaviour over the past four years.

"We don't need booze or entertainment or pop music for this occasion and I think people get that point," he said.

Organisers had learned from recent years' experience and this year's ceremonies would be about reverence and commemoration rather than entertainment, he said.

"If the visitors want to gather afterwards and enjoy themselves in (the nearby town of) Canakkale, that's fine, but the commemoration occasion is not the time or place for a party."

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Compass: Gallipoli Pilgrimage

By Sacha Molitorisz April 23, 2006  (Documentary on April 23, 2006, ABC, 10:10 PM)
 

Four Aussies visiting Gallipoli for last year's 90th anniversary service.

Fairfax photograph the Australian troops' landing place at Gallipoli.
Photo: Mike Bowers

Ahead of Anzac Day, this Compass special follows four Aussies who traveled to Gallipoli for last year's 90th anniversary service. Excitable University of NSW historian Bruce Scates provides insights; young Rebecca Leach includes a Turkish stopover in her backpacking plans and shares interesting, innocent observations; and former soldier Luke Davis, from rural Queensland, is just as laconic as you'd expect of a country bloke with military experience, but he too is moved.

The most compelling of the four is former NSW chief justice Sir Laurence Street, who visits with his 14-year-old daughter, Jessie. Ostensibly, the filmmakers were interested in Jessie, but it's her father who quietly commands attention. At Gallipoli, beside the grave of his uncle and namesake, Sir Laurence is overwhelmed; when emotion robs this articulate man of words, the silence is poignant.

This is a reverent, no-frills documentary that lightly touches on issues of national psyche and identity.
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia

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Paul Kelly: Empire's battle was our fight too

Australia's participation in World War I was instinctive, sensible and necessary

April 26, 2006 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18931691-601,00.html

 

THE Gallipoli resurgence enshrines Anzac as the central and unifying story of Australia's national spirit, inviting a final closure to the historic divide in our nationalism between loyalty to Britain and loyalty to Australia.

Gallipoli, as author Les Carlyon wrote in his 2001 study, is no longer linked to the causes and tyrannies of the day. Finally, in a new century, "it stands alone". And World War I, like Gallipoli, is now liberated from the ideological conflicts of the 20th century. This shows even more clearly that Australia's participation in that war was instinctive, sensible and necessary.

The historical campaign against Australia's role in the Great War ran for most of the 20th century. It was built on the false contention that World War I was not Australia's business because it was an imperialist or capitalist or far distant British conflict.

The Australia-first nationalists said we were fighting in other people's wars and tugging the forelock to Empire. They argued Gallipoli was a tragedy not just because of the slaughter but because Australia should have stayed away from Europe's wars.

This argument won traction because of the sheer scale of death. But it also had traction because the war had split Australia between Irish and British, Catholic and Protestant, working class and middle class, Australia first and Empire first: differences that belong to the 20th century and an age that has passed forever.

US historian David Fromkin, in his 2004 classic Europe's Last Summer, argues that World War I "did in fact lead to the second [world war] even though it need not have done so and the second, whether or not it needed to do so, led to the Cold War".

The issues raised by 1914 were resolved only in 1989-91 when a united Germany found its place in Europe and the legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution collapsed. The ideological baggage that surrounded Australia's own debate about World War I has also collapsed.

Its final chapter was played out in the 1990s when Paul Keating tried to discredit the Liberal Party as Menzies sell-outs whose primary loyalty was to Britain and not to Australia.

It was the last gasp of the radical-nationalist tradition. It provoked a fearful retaliation from John Howard, who has conducted a decade-long counter-offensive that settles the issue conclusively. Howard, a pro-British monarchist, has been a champion of populist Australian nationalism, thereby recruiting both banners to his cause. In retrospect, it is incredible to think that Labor tried to use nationalism against Howard.

Howard is testimony to the authenticity of the original Australian-Briton fused identity. To imagine that leaders such as Alfred Deakin, Billy Hughes and Andrew Fisher were not genuine nationalists (or even sell-outs) because they were pro-British and saw that Australia's survival was irrevocably tied to the Empire was always absurd.

Five days before World War I began, Liberal prime minister Joseph Cook said: "Whatever happens, Australia is part of the Empire right to the full. When the Empire is at war, so Australia is at war."

This was not a contentious statement. For most Australians it was a statement of the obvious.

Contrary to some impressions, World War I did not happen by accident. It happened because of deliberate decisions taken by the German high command to further Germany's strategic ambitions.

Gallipoli became Australia's sacred site and April 25th its national day precisely because of the fusion of Australia's nationalist and Empire identity. It is true the location was the result of Winston Churchill's flawed tactical vision. The bigger truth, however, highly relevant for the present generation, is that Australia's in-principle participation in the war was not a mistake. It was not a craven sell-out. And it was not a betrayal of Australian nationalism. It was, instead, an expression of Australian instinct, values and strategy.

The world of 1914 was run from Europe. European empires determined what happened in Asia and Africa and the region in which Australia lived. Any notion that a European war had no implication for Australia's future was crazy.

In his 1990 book, Anzac and Empire, historian John Robertson offered a reasoned assessment of what Australia had at stake and what Britain's defeat might have meant for Australia.

Defeat would have terminated Britain's imperial system and the Royal Navy, our defence shield since 1788. Germany may not have bothered to occupy Australia but it would have extracted severe reparations for itself and its allies given the cost of the war. Australia's standard of living would have fallen heavily.

Robertson suggests the terms of a peace treaty would have geared Australia's economy to the needs of German industry. Other national policies such as defence and immigration would have been tied to German concerns. Germany would have reclaimed its Pacific possessions and probably would have seized Australian New Guinea. Its navy would have been dominant and its military power immense. Australia's options as a nation would have been greatly retarded.

In this situation it is hard to imagine Australia fighting in any version of World War II. As Japan's power grew, the likely 1930s result would have been a Germany-Japan accommodation in the Pacific at Australia's further expense. Australia's living standards, values and national self-esteem would have been punished. This would have been the most favourable outcome. Robertson says: "Anyone who thinks Australia could be indifferent to the issue of whether it was better to rely on Britain's help or to be an incident in the Germany-Japanese great power rivalry is not qualified to think sensibly on Australian defence and foreign policy."

The point, of course, is that Australia's leaders did think sensibly. And the Australians who volunteered for service were not fools. Most of them knew instinctively, in Robertson's words, that "they were fighting an important struggle that had to be won to avoid disastrous consequences".

Australia's dilemma in 1914 was explained by military historian David Horner: "Everybody in Australia recognised that to defend Australia just by relying on our own resources would not be possible."

Most Australian leaders, moreover, knew there was a threat and that the threat was Japan.

The war policy of Billy Hughes was heavily shaped by calculations about the defence of Australia and the belief that Japan would convert from being an ally into an enemy.

The idea that Australia would improve its security by abstaining from the Great War was not assessed because it was inconceivable.

The war, as George Kennan said, was the "grand catastrophe" of the century. Within the fog of this catastrophe is its meaning for Australia.

Gallipoli's power derives from its authenticity, not its sentimentality. The courage and fortitude of the Anzacs were seized on by the people as a vindication of their recent nationhood. Gallipoli provided the spiritual inspiration that Federation, limited by its political mechanics, could not provide.

The Gallipoli campaign was a tragedy and a failure. Yet it was part of a wider war whose outcome would be momentous and whose significance was a vindication of Australia's commitment. Our war decision was not a blunder but an authentic reflection of identity, values and strategy.

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ANOTHER DEFINING CONFLICT FOR AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY NOW ON FILM
25.4.2006 18:21:55 http://www9.sbs.com.au/radio/index.php?page=wv&newsID=133751

One of the reasons so many young Australians are joining the depleted ranks of Gallipoli and other war veterans on Anzac Day, is to try to discover and experience the sense of national identity forged through the sacrifice of the soldiers who fought for their country in foreign wars.

But while the focus of Anzac Day is on Gallipoli, there's another, equally brutal conflict, closer to home, about which much has been written, but little has been seen by way of film.

It may be that the mountain rainforest terrain of Papua New Guinea is so incredibly forbidding, that it has deterred film makers from trying to capture the spirit of Kokoda. But it helped inspire Alister Grierson to make his first feature film about this conflict.

What he's produced is a visual time capsule, a window into the legend of heroism.. by determined young Australian troops, thwarting the inexorable Japanese advance on Port Morseby along the Kokoda Trail, and thus blocking their path to Australia.

The Director of Kokoda, Alister

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Maori weapons form Anzac tribute

25 April 2006

By ALANAH MAY ERIKSEN

They may be the weapons of days gone by, but an exhibition of Maori taiaha will be a living Anzac Day tribute when it opens today.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples will speak about the weapons at the new Iwi Art gallery in Tory St, Wellington. Stokes Valley taiaha group Te Ropu Mou Rakau O Koranui will demonstrate how they were used, with Dr Sharples providing a commentary.

He said speaking at the opening was a fitting Anzac Day tribute to the Maori Battalion.

Weapons on display include greenstone mere (club), carved patu (wooden club), wahaika (whale bone club) and hand lances known as taiaha, tewhatewha and pouwhenua.

The weapons were carved by graduates of Te Puia, a Maori arts and crafts institute in Rotorua.

"We've got work from the finest carvers in the country," said gallery director Huhana Rokx. "It may be expensive but if you think of the time and effort that went into it, it's worth it."

Among the 300 guests at the opening will be Two Cars, One Night short film director Taika Waititi. The film, which featured in the "Native Forum" section of the Sundance Film Festival, will be screened at the gallery today.

Dr Sharples is no stranger to the use of Maori weaponry. In 1983 he founded a Hawke's Bay school to teach students the history of the weaponry. The school has since expanded throughout the country and internationally. There are two schools in Hawaii, one in Britain and two in Australia.

Dr Sharples said Maori culture had been driven underground for years and he had sought to preserve its history by passing on knowledge from elders.

"A lot has been lost," he said. "What we know now must only be a fraction of what there was."

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April 25, 2006. 0:04am (AEST)

The RSL says Anzac Day is not the time for a protest. (File photo) (ABC TV)

Veterans plan Anzac Day protest

A group of disgruntled ex-servicemen are planning to stage an Anzac Day protest against what they say has been mistreatment by the Department of Veterans' Affairs in processing their claims for benefits.

As part of the protest they will wear orange ribbons and armbands.

They say it is a symbol of dissent designed to draw attention to their cause.

Former sergeant Paul Dignon, national coordinator of what has been dubbed as the Sea of Orange Campaign, says veterans' claims are knocked back or ignored all together.

"And even if they do pay attention to a particular application for compensation, they stuff you around and harass you for months, if not years," he said.

Sergeant Dignon says he has been waiting 10 months for help after a claim for post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on by an incident in East Timor in 2000, when he was caught in the middle of a riot.

"I shake constantly, I go into convulsions, I have flashbacks during the day times which takes my right back to where incidents occurred in East Timor," he said.

"I have nightmares every night, I suffer from night sweats, and I'm on quite a bit of medication at the same time."

He says there are thousands like him, whose claims are yet to be recognised by the Veterans Affairs' Department.

The RSL and other veterans' groups say it is not the appropriate forum for a political protest, but Sergeant Dignon disagrees.

"They may think it's not the appropriate forum, but it once again shows that our leaders of these ex-servicemen organisations are not in touch let alone in tune with even the history of Anzac Day," he said.

"Anzac Day actually started out as a protest march by World War I diggers who were protesting about the way they were treated on their return from Anzac Cove. That's how it started. And they wore blue armbands back then to protest their dissent."

But the RSL's deputy national president Don Rowe says while they will not stop the protest, they have urged their members to ignore it.

"They might find that there is actually a backlash against them," he said.

"A number of diggers that I've spoken to are totally opposed to it for the reasons I have spoken: that Anzac Day is for remembrance and not as a political protest."

The NSW head of the Vietnam Veterans Association Barry Billing says while he believes they have a valid reason to complain, he is against the protest.

"I don't think Anzac Day is the day we make a political point," he said.

"Even though Anzac Day started off as a day of protest, it has turned into a national day of commemorating the Anzac spirit and of sacrifice, and of those who gave their lives in the service of their country, and for those who are suffering."

-based on a report by Jean Kennedy for PM http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1622950.htm

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Anzac Day, and the passing parade

April 26, 2006  www.theage.com.au

ONE DAY, they will be gone. All gone. One day, the Anzac Day march will have none of the veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War or any of the other conflicts in which armed forces personnel have so far served. In the past few years, we have seen the vanishing begin with the World War I veterans.

Who then will march? The children, the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren, the descendants of war. They will carry the medals and memories of their loved ones onto the streets on Anzac Day. They will commemorate those who fell in battle, and those who survived the battle yet fell to that other combatant everyone must face — death.

The renaissance in feeling towards Anzac Day has been remarkable. Interest has surged in not only what the nation has been through, particularly at Gallipoli and in World War I, and in other conflicts, but also what it has meant for the people who served. Tens of thousands of people attended yesterday's marches. Estimates put the combined dawn and morning march in Melbourne at 80,000.

One Melbourne teenager, Jessica Wyle, said Anzac Day meant "just remembering all the people who've died in previous wars and the people who are fighting for us and how they gave up their lives and how they gave up their families, just to give us a good, safe place to live".

But is there a danger in this resurgence? Memory may reside in history books, but it also lives within that most changeable of creatures: the human. In the children's march, we commemorate sacrifice, but we also create an illusion. As the ranks thin, they regenerate — not with those who went to war, but with those who have not gone. Can the spirit of the day remain the same when none of the veterans are there to march? When we walk with ghosts?

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Nation remembers its heroes

From: AAP NEWS.com.au - Australia April 25, 2006

 

Tribute ... Vietnam veteran Ken Taylor in Sydney / AAP

THE death of a present-day soldier in Iraq brought new meaning to the Anzac Day service in a tiny Victorian town today as around the country tens of thousands of people attended dawn services and parades.

Residents of Briagolong in Gippsland mourned the death of Private Jake Kovco, who accidentally shot himself in Baghdad on Friday.

After a short march to the town's cenotaph, wreaths were laid by Private Kovco's parents and local Nationals MP and federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran.

Private Kovco, a 25-year-old father of two, died from an accidental shot while cleaning his pistol.

And it was the ongoing threat to Australia's servicemen and women serving overseas that was an overwhelming theme around the country today.

Huge crowds made the early start for dawn services, and many more lined the streets for marches marking the 91st anniversary of the ill-fated Anzac landing at Gallipoli in Turkey.

It is the first Anzac Day without a living World War I fighter after the death of former sailor William Evan Crawford Allan in Melbourne six months ago.

Private Kovco was mentioned among Australia's wartime heroes in the service at MELBOURNE'S Shrine of Remembrance.

Up to 30,000 people huddled in the Shrine's forecourt for the service, some rugged up in jackets and beanies, others draped in the Australian flag or wearing service medals on their chests.

The service heard heroic tales of Australia's war dead and battle combatants, whose "gallantry was in the highest tradition of the Australian army".

There were also perspectives from Australia's youth, with the Spirit of Anzac Tour winner Claire Chisholm reliving her experiences touring Europe's historic battlefields.

"It was a story I heard of mateship, courage and sacrifice, which helped me to understand what I was seeing," she said.

"These stories (made) each one of those graves and names on the memorials into individual people, people who were prepared to give us their lives to fight alongside their mates for our country and our freedom."

At SYDNEY'S Martin Place the service began at 4.30am (AEST) in cool conditions.

Air Vice-Marshall John Quaife said that while today paid respect to the events of 1915, those who fought and died in subsequent conflicts would never be forgotten.

A special thought should especially be given to those in service now, he said.

"Today our thoughts should be with those young men and women in the Solomon Islands, in the Middle East, in Timor, in Iraq and Afghanistan," he told the service.

"Also our thoughts should be with the family of Private Jake Kovco who died while on service for his country in Baghdad."

Vice Air Marshall Quaife's address was followed by a wreath laying ceremony involving Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and NSW Premier Morris Iemma.

Lieutenant-Governor James Spigelman represented NSW Governor Marie Bashir, who is in Canberra deputising for Governor General Major General Michael Jeffery.

Terry Coffey, from Campbelltown, arrived at Martin Place at 3am (AEST) with his two boys Matthew, 15 and Jason, 11, to keep a family tradition going.

"We've been coming in for the past five to ten years, I first came in with my dad who served in New Guinea and the boys then wanted to come in," he said.

"It's great, you can't get to where you are going if you don't know where you've been."

Korean War veteran Allan Collins made this morning his first dawn service ceremony since 1946, when Victoria Cross recipient Sergeant Thomas Derrick played the last post from the balcony of a nearby bank building.

"I've come today because it might be the last one, it has been way too long, I can't answer why I haven't been here in the past," Mr Collins said.

"I see a lot of young men and women here, and there is a lot of criticism of young people today, but they are no different to us - in times of trial they would go."

Relatively mild conditions greeted those attending the dawn service at the Australian War Memorial in CANBERRA.

The service, which in previous years has attracted crowds of up to 25,000, featured a male choir and a main address from Royce Thompson, the Air Force's principal chaplain.

Reverend Thompson said the thousands of Australian men and women serving overseas were continuing the Anzac tradition by facing evil at every turn.

"It is a time to be inspired by their sacrifice and courage, so that we might play our part in seeking to confront the evil in our world," he said.

"(The British statesman and philosopher) Edmund Burke once said evil prospers when good men - and might I add good women - do nothing.

"We must stand against evil; we must work for peace together; we must not, we dare not forget the Anzacs and all they stood for.

"Indeed, we must remember all who've left Australia's shores and stood in the face of danger to combat evil, and those at home who've supported them."

Prime Minister John Howard this morning announced the war memorial and Anzac Parade would be included on the national heritage list.

He said the war memorial was a majestic building which attracted thousands of people every Anzac Day and up to a million visitors every year.

"By listing the Australian War Memorial and Anzac Parade on the national heritage list, we recognise the courage of those who haver served in our armed forces, here and overseas, in both the field of conflict and, more recently, as part of peace keeping missions in our region," he said.

In his Anzac Day address Mr Howard said: "It is important that we pause to thank those who survived wartime and are still among us, and to remember those who gave their lives and didn't come back.

"We should also remind ourselves that the commitment of Australian men and women overseas in uniform is ongoing."

About 1500 Australians are taking part in military and humanitarian operations in Iraq, where a Victorian soldier accidentally killed himself last week, as well as Afghanistan, East Timor, Bougainville, the Middle East, Pakistan and the Solomon Islands, which erupted in civil unrest again last week.

The thousands of Australians in GALLIPOLI for today's events include Governor-General Michael Jeffery.

The former army major-general said his debut visit had already left a marked impression on him.

"People are recognising more and more that this day and this place was the beginning of a true Australian national identity," Maj Gen Jeffery said.

He called for Australians to promote peace and tolerance instead of violence.

The dawn service at Anzac Cove in Turkey will be more reflective than last year's extravaganza marking the 90th anniversary.

Instead of warm-up rock videos and light shows there will be war documentaries and interviews with members of the crowd, with music coming from the RAAF band rather than the Bee Gees.

Ceremonies in LONDON will also be more low-key than last year when the Queen attended.

Marches in Australia will be augmented by the appearance of PNG's famous "fuzzy wuzzy angels" who excelled as carriers and stretcher bearers in the WWII Kokoda Track campaign.

Three representatives of the 50,000 volunteer "angels" will march for the first time in tribal costume beside Australian veterans at Helensburgh, near WOLLONGONG.

Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson said in many ways the Kokoda campaign had more significance for contemporary Australia than the Anzac campaign.

On the KOKODA TRACK itself, a dawn service paid special homage to the enduring Anzac quality of mateship.

Federal Human Services Minister Joe Hockey and Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd joined hundreds of people at the ceremony at the Isurava Memorial Site.

The two MPs have been part of an expedition along the infamous track, where Australians died in World War II, turning back the Japanese on Australia's doorstep.

Former chaplain of the Australian army, Monsignor John Butler, told the service mateship was the "antidote to war".

He said both Australia and Papua New Guinea need to adopt the Anzac value to progress on the world stage.

"Our frequent and our indifferent use of the word has tended to reduce its impact ... the diggers from this track might not have invented the word but they certainly showed us how to live it," he said on Channel 7.

"Mateship takes the word friendship and elevates it to a higher plane. It makes it an absolute expectation that assistance will be offered, needs will be met and loneliness will never be experienced."

Other parades will take place as usual, with two exceptions.

The formal SOLOMON ISLANDS service became a victim of the renewed violence rocking that nation, with Australian High Commissioner Patrick Cole explaining that not only would it breach the curfew but uniformed personnel were needed elsewhere.

However, at Honiara's Santa Cruz Yacht Club, a small group of New Zealanders and Australians gathered for a modest "near dawn" service to ensure at least some sort of ceremony marked the day.

New Zealander Alastair Martin, an Honiara businessman and co-organiser of today's ceremony, told today's gathering of about 20 people that Australian and New Zealand troops serving with the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) were continuing the tradition of their Anzac forebears.

"It's probably very appropriate to gather here on a beach because that's where it started, on a beach in 1915."

Meanwhile, Cyclone Monica forced the cancellation of DARWIN'S service and march.

Darwin RSL manager Mussy Shaw said: "It's Australia's biggest day and we have to cancel it, so people are very upset."

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Melbourne Herald Sun - Australia 25apr06

Thousands join Anzac tributes

THOUSANDS of people have attended Anzac Day dawn services around the country, paying tribute to victims of past wars, but also today's servicemen and women.

Organisers welcomed huge crowds ahead of a day of events marking the 91st anniversary of the ill-fated Anzac landing at Gallipoli in Turkey.

It is the first Anzac Day without a living World War I fighter after the death of former sailor William Evan Crawford Allan in Melbourne six months ago.

And the ongoing threat to Australians was an overwhelming theme today, with the nation's first casualty of the Iraq conflict being honoured at Melbourne's dawn service and elsewhere.

Private Jake Kovco, 25 - who accidentally shot himself while cleaning a pistol in Baghdad last Friday - was mentioned among Australia's wartime heroes in the service at MELBOURNE'S Shrine of Remembrance.

Up to 30,000 people huddled in the Shrine's forecourt for the service, some rugged up in jackets and beanies, others draped in the Australian flag or wearing service medals on their chests.

The service heard heroic tales of Australia's war dead and battle combatants, whose "gallantry was in the highest tradition of the Australian army".

There were also perspectives from Australia's youth, with the Spirit of Anzac Tour winner Claire Chisholm reliving her experiences touring Europe's historic battlefields.

"It was a story I heard of mateship, courage and sacrifice, which helped me to understand what I was seeing," she said.

"These stories (made) each one of those graves and names on the memorials into individual people, people who were prepared to give us their lives to fight alongside their mates for our country and our freedom."

At SYDNEY'S Martin Place the service began at 4.30am (AEST) in cool conditions.

Air Vice-Marshall John Quaife said that while today paid respect to the events of 1915, those who fought and died in subsequent conflicts would never be forgotten.

A special thought should especially be given to those in service now, he said.

"Today our thoughts should be with those young men and women in the Solomon Islands, in the Middle East, in Timor, in Iraq and Afghanistan," he told the service.

"Also our thoughts should be with the family of Private Jake Kovco who died while on service for his country in Baghdad."

Vice Air Marshall Quaife's address was followed by a wreath laying ceremony involving Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and NSW Premier Morris Iemma.

Lieutenant-Governor James Spigelman represented NSW Governor Marie Bashir, who is in Canberra deputising for Governor General Major General Michael Jeffery.

Terry Coffey, from Campbelltown, arrived at Martin Place at 3am (AEST) with his two boys Matthew, 15 and Jason, 11, to keep a family tradition going.

"We've been coming in for the past five to ten years, I first came in with my dad who served in New Guinea and the boys then wanted to come in," he said.

"It's great, you can't get to where you are going if you don't know where you've been."

Korean War veteran Allan Collins made this morning his first dawn service ceremony since 1946, when Victoria Cross recipient Sergeant Thomas Derrick played the last post from the balcony of a nearby bank building.

"I've come today because it might be the last one, it has been way too long, I can't answer why I haven't been here in the past," Mr Collins said.

"I see a lot of young men and women here, and there is a lot of criticism of young people today, but they are no different to us - in times of trial they would go."

Relatively mild conditions greeted those attending the dawn service at the Australian War Memorial in CANBERRA.

The service, which in previous years has attracted crowds of up to 25,000, featured a male choir and a main address from Royce Thompson, the Air Force's principal chaplain.

Reverend Thompson said the thousands of Australian men and women serving overseas were continuing the Anzac tradition by facing evil at every turn.

"It is a time to be inspired by their sacrifice and courage, so that we might play our part in seeking to confront the evil in our world," he said.

"(The British statesman and philosopher) Edmund Burke once said evil prospers when good men - and might I add good women - do nothing.

"We must stand against evil; we must work for peace together; we must not, we dare not forget the Anzacs and all they stood for.

"Indeed, we must remember all who've left Australia's shores and stood in the face of danger to combat evil, and those at home who've supported them."

Prime Minister John Howard this morning announced the war memorial and Anzac Parade would be included on the national heritage list.

He said the war memorial was a majestic building which attracted thousands of people every Anzac Day and up to a million visitors every year.

"By listing the Australian War Memorial and Anzac Parade on the national heritage list, we recognise the courage of those who haver served in our armed forces, here and overseas, in both the field of conflict and, more recently, as part of peace keeping missions in our region," he said.

In his Anzac Day address Mr Howard said: "It is important that we pause to thank those who survived wartime and are still among us, and to remember those who gave their lives and didn't come back.

"We should also remind ourselves that the commitment of Australian men and women overseas in uniform is ongoing."

About 1500 Australians are taking part in military and humanitarian operations in Iraq, where a Victorian soldier accidentally killed himself last week, as well as Afghanistan, East Timor, Bougainville, the Middle East, Pakistan and the Solomon Islands, which erupted in civil unrest again last week.

The thousands of Australians in GALLIPOLI for today's events include Governor-General Michael Jeffery.

The former army major-general said his debut visit had already left a marked impression on him.

"People are recognising more and more that this day and this place was the beginning of a true Australian national identity," Maj Gen Jeffery said.

The dawn service at Anzac Cove in Turkey will be more reflective than last year's extravaganza marking the 90th anniversary.

Instead of warm-up rock videos and light shows there will be war documentaries and interviews with members of the crowd, with music coming from the RAAF band rather than the Bee Gees.

Ceremonies in LONDON will also be more low-key than last year when the Queen attended.

Marches in Australia will be augmented by the appearance of PNG's famous "fuzzy wuzzy angels" who excelled as carriers and stretcher bearers in the WWII Kokoda Track campaign.

Three representatives of the 50,000 volunteer "angels" will march for the first time in tribal costume beside Australian veterans at Helensburgh, near WOLLONGONG.

Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson said in many ways the Kokoda campaign had more significance for contemporary Australia than the Anzac campaign.

Other parades will take place as usual, with two exceptions.

The SOLOMON ISLANDS service has become a victim of the renewed violence rocking that nation, with Australian High Commissioner Patrick Cole explaining that not only would it breach the curfew but uniformed personnel were needed elsewhere.

And Cyclone Monica has forced the cancellation of DARWIN'S service and march.

Darwin RSL manager Mussy Shaw said: "It's Australia's biggest day and we have to cancel it, so people are very upset."

---

Groups stage vigil on eve of Anzac Day

Young people from different community groups around the state have begun a guard of honour around Anzac sites in Adelaide.

The 12-hour vigil will end with tomorrow morning's dawn services.

RSL Anzac Day Committee chairman Bill Denny is at the vigil at the National War Memorial on North Terrace.

"It's spectacular to see all these young men and women from different youth and community groups coming along and mounting their guard and showing their respect for the people, not much older than themselves in fact, who served and in many cases gave their lives for their country and what they thought was right," he said.

April 24, 2006 www.abc.net.au

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Anzac service held in Honiara
From correspondents in Honiara
25apr06 Advertiser Adelaide - Adelaide,South Australia,Australia

AS Australian and New Zealand troops patrol the streets of the Solomon Islands' capital Honiara after recent riots, on a nearby beach a small and informal ceremony has paid tribute to their Anzac forebears.

Formal Anzac Day services have been cancelled following the riots and a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed as troops and police work to restore calm.

At the Santa Cruz Yacht Club, a small group of New Zealanders and Australians gathered for a modest "near dawn" service to ensure at least some sort of ceremony marked the day.

New Zealander Alastair Martin, an Honiara businessman and co-organiser of today's ceremony, told today's gathering of about 20 people that Australian and New Zealand troops serving with the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) were continuing the tradition of their Anzac forebears.

"It's probably very appropriate to gather here on a beach because that's where it started, on a beach in 1915."

Mr Martin and Australian Greg Young, also a longtime Honiara resident, threw wreaths into the tide from the yacht club jetty off a beach that was the scene of intense fighting between American and Japanese troops during the battles for the island of Guadalcanal in World War II.

Mr Young, who wore his Vietnam service medals and his father's Pacific War medals, said the words of the service rang a little more loudly today because of the recent tensions and presence of Australian and New Zealand troops in Honiara, flown in to quell further trouble.

New Zealand High Commissioner Brian Sanders said after the service that many expatriates in Honiara wanted some sort of Anzac service as many had relatives who died in the wars.

While today's ceremony did not break regulations, RAMSI personnel were represented only by a New Zealand army officer and a New Zealand police officer.

Mr Martin and Mr Young are working on starting a veterans' association to help Solomon Islands veterans who fought in World War II.

A formal Anzac ceremony is traditionally held at the city's cenotaph, attended by 200 to 300 people including the governor-general, Australian and New Zealand expatriates and many Solomon Islanders.

After this morning's ceremony, a RAMSI helicopter was busily circling the city centre before the reconvening of parliament and more political manoeuvring to resolve whether Snyder Rini remains prime minister.

Violent riots and looting broke out for two days last week across parts of Honiara following the election by MPs of Rini as prime minister.

Up to 80 per cent of Chinatown was destroyed along with hotels, shops and restaurants elsewhere in the city, with some protesters claiming Mr Rini was in the pockets of Chinese businessmen.

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NT marks Anzac Day despite cyclone

Despite cyclone Monica forcing the cancellation of Darwin's official Anzac Day ceremony, there has still been a gathering at the cenotaph this morning.

Around 30 people gathered at dawn as the RSL laid a wreath and the ode was read.

Korean War veteran John Wilson says he was always going to attend the cenotaph, despite the weather.

"It was the first time I'd ever heard of the dawn service being cancelled," he said.

"I decided I owe this country a debt - although I was in the Korean War and I was born here and my parents were born here and pioneers - I still think I owe the country a debt.

"That's why I arrived at the cenotaph."

Alice Springs residents turned out for a dawn service on Anzac Hill.

The official Anzac Day march will start at the council chambers around 9:45am ACST when approximately 50 ex-service men and women will walk to Anzac Hill.

The commemorative service will begin at 10:30am with a decorated soldier from the Vietnam War, Barry Tolley, guest of honour.

The Alice Springs RSL says the club will be open to everyone today and the first throw of two-up will be at 2:00pm.

Tennant Creek has also marked Anzac Day with its dawn service at the RSL club on Schmidt Street, it will be followed by a march at 8:30am along Patterson Street.

Soldiers in Iraq

Darwin-based soldiers serving in southern Iraq will observe a traditional Anzac Day service tomorrow.

With many soldiers on duty today, only three-quarters of the force will be free to attend the dawn service.

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Short, the commanding officer of the Al Mathana task group, says soldiers from other nations will also attend the service.

"We're going to start with a coffee royale in the morning with a shot of rum," he said.

"We'll then participate in a dawn service, which will have attendance by our UK allies, so we think about 600 to 700 soldiers will be attending that."

Lt Col Short says soldiers not on duty will be able to relax for the day.

"We'll make sure that we'll heavily contribute to sports where we'll beat the Brits, so expect cricket, volleyball and I think we'll throw them a bone and take them on in soccer."

Lt Col Short says his thoughts are with the family of the Australian soldier who died in Iraq last week.

Victorian soldier Jacob Kovco died instantly when he accidentally shot himself in the head.

Lt Col Short says the loss has affected all the troops serving in Iraq.

"We are a small military and therefore, a family. Absolutely the loss of one soldier is felt by all," he said.

"As a soldier I feel it, as a father with children I feel it, and feel very strongly for the member's family, and certainly our thoughts are with them at the moment." www.abc.net.au/news

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ABC Online - Australia

Tuesday, April 25, 2006. 6:33am (AEST)

Paying their respects: It is the 91st anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. (ABC)

Anzac Day services draw thousands

Thousands of Australians around the nation have gathered at dawn services to commemorate Anzac Day.

It is the 91st anniversary of the Gallipoli landing after which more than 8,000 Australian troops lost their lives.

It is also the 90th anniversary of the arrival of Australian troops on the Western Front.

The traditional services coincide with the pre-dawn hour the first Anzac troops waded ashore at Gallipoli in 1915.

Canberra's main dawn service at the National War Memorial has attracted a crowd of 27,000 people.

Many people carried candles as they listened to the Anzac dedication and observed a minute's silence as dawn crept over the horizon.

In the prayer, chaplain Air Commodore Royce Thompson recognised those who have fallen in other conflicts.

"We are mindful that as we recall the Anzac landing 91 years ago that this year also marks the 90th anniversary of the battle of the Somme and the 40th anniversary of the battle of Long Tan," he said.

Perth record

A record crowd of more than 30,000 people has attended the dawn service in Kings Park in Perth.

Crowds surrounded the state's war memorial as large television screens carried the service to thousands of others spread across the city side of the park.

For 85-year-old World War II veteran Ron Stone, the occasion was made even more special by the high number of young families attending.

"I think the success of it has been telling the youngsters what's going on," Mr Stone said.

In Brisbane, a group of ex-servicemen marched through the city to Anzac Square and the Shrine of Remembrance.

There, they listened to 14-year-old Ipswich girl Elissa Coates, whose great-grandfather was among those who took part in the ill-fated landings.

"Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn," she recited.

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them."

Young people also offered reflections at Hobart's ceremony.

Katelyn Davy, the 11-year-old descendent of a Gallipoli veteran, told the crowd Australia must never forget the peace brought by those who have served in war.

"It is because of them that we have the rights freedoms and civilisations today," she said.

"Peace is fragile like a delicate butterfly and must be protected or it will flutter away."

Darwin ceremony

Despite cyclone Monica forcing the cancellation of Darwin's ceremony, there has still been a gathering at the cenotaph.

Around 30 people gathered at dawn as the RSL laid a wreath and the ode was read.

Korean War veteran John Wilson says he was always going to attend the cenotaph, despite the weather.

"It was the first time I'd ever heard of the dawn service being cancelled," he said.

"I decided I owe this country a debt - although I was in the Korean War and I was born here and my parents were born here and pioneers - I still think I owe the country a debt.

"That's why I arrived at the cenotaph."

In Sydney, Martin Place has been the focus of the ceremonies.

There are no World War I diggers left but some of their descendants have turned out.

The comradeship and sacrifices of those who have served has been honoured with addresses, hymns, poems, wreath laying and The Last Post.

At Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance, thousands are expected to line up for hours after the dawn service to place floral tributes in the shrine sanctuary.

Digger's day

Australia's oldest surviving World War I soldier will commemorate Anzac Day from a nursing home in Bendigo in central Victoria.

Jack Ross, 107, enlisted in 1917, but did not see active service and was training to be a wireless operator when the war ended.

His daughter, Peggy Ashburn, says he has put an Anzac Day poster up in his room and will watch commemorative services on television.

"He told me today that it's not about war, it's about remembering the men that didn't come home that gave our lives to our country," she said.

"He's never talked about war, he said there's no winner in a war which I think he has stuck to that always."

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Hadfield's Anzac spirit captures prize

Rosalie Higson April 25, 2006

AT FIRST glance it may look like any landscape painting of the rugged hills above Anzac Cove at Gallipoli.

Closer inspection reveals the shadowy figures of Private Simpson and his donkey, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, the face of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Ataturk, as well as tourist buses lining the coastal road.

Ataturk's Legacy, by Queanbeyan artist Margaret Hadfield, is the winner of the inaugural $10,000 Gallipoli Art Prize, which was announced at Sydney's Gallipoli Memorial Club last Thursday.

It is Hadfield's third painting of the area, after a trip with her husband some years ago triggered a passion for the subject.

"I hope to do about 20 paintings," she says. "I feel I'm on the right track now.

"It is a sad place, and you can feel the blood in the earth. But you can also feel the spirit of camaraderie, and that's what I focused on. I felt an overpowering sense of history when I visited. It really touched me and I've become very passionate about it."

Ataturk's Legacy is named after the Turkish leader, whose inspiring words on the memorial at Anzac Cove feature in the work.

The prize was set up by the Gallipoli Memorial Club to depict the spirit of Anzac - loyalty, respect, courage, comradeship and a love of their country.

The judges were pleased with the standard of entries, although selecting the winner from the 60 entries caused "high emotion at the annual general meeting", says club president Stephen Ware.

More than other art competitions - such as the Archibald or Moran portrait prizes - a genuine feeling for the spirit of the Anzacs was the imaginative challenge for artists. Finalists included a dramatic portrait of a young soldier at the instant of death by Robert Hannaford, and casualties arriving at a Turkish hospital by Hamdi Demirci, as well as Frank Morris's painting of an Australian soldier lighting a cigarette for a wounded Turk, titled There You Go, Mate.

Hadfield, 49, who has been a full-time painter for six years, plans to return to Gallipoli to continue her series.

"I want nothing more to go back and sit there and see what images come to me. To be there and be able to paint is my dream," she says. "Ataturk's words, which are on the huge memorial down on Anzac Cove, would move anyone to tears. 'Your sons and our sons now live in a friendly country' - and that's why I incorporated them."

A companion competition, also with a $10,000 prize, will be held in Turkey for Turkish artists. The winner will be announced on October 29, Canakkale Day, which commemorates the World War I campaign, also a turning point in Turkish national history.

The Gallipoli Art Prize, Gallipoli Memorial Club, Loftus Street, Sydney, until Thursday.

Australian - Sydney,Australia

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Gallipoli disappears under a sea of plastic seats

Peter Wilson, Gallipoli Australian - Sydney,Australia April 25, 2006

THE simple and barren beach that was once Anzac Cove has all but disappeared under a new jumble of plastic and metal stadium seating and big video screens, changing the face of today's dawn service.

The crush of interest in the Gallipoli rituals among Australians, New Zealanders and Turks has led organisers to erect what amounts to a temporary stadium at Anzac Cove as one of several measures to manage the historic site.

In place of the simple but at times rowdy overnight gatherings that have led up to the dawn service in recent years, the organisers will unveil today a new, more heavily scripted, approach featuring hours of big-screen footage explaining the history of the site alongside interviews with visitors conducted by ABC TV personality Andrew Denton.

The large stands of 5000 plastic seats have replaced the wooden seats that were used for last year's 90th anniversary ceremonies. And they are a striking contrast to the previous practice of allowing thousands of pilgrims to squeeze on to the cove with little more than sleeping bags and blankets on the grass.

Turkish government officials said last night that even bigger changes were to come, including plans to build a hi-tech "battle simulation centre" on the Gallipoli peninsula.

Osman Pepe, Turkey's Minister for Environment and Forestry, also said yesterday that from May 15 all Turkish visitors would be forced to use official guides to visit the peninsula's cemeteries, monuments and battlefields.

That would allow visits by tour buses to be scheduled and their numbers controlled.

"Taking guides will not be obligatory for foreigners but for Turkish visitors they will be obligatory," he said in Canakkale, near the peninsula.

Mr Pepe said the new controls and planned investments of up to $US100 million ($134 million) would aim to better preserve the sites in the face of the enormous growth of Turkish interest in the region over the past four years.

As recently as 2002, just 300,000 to 350,000 Turks visited the peninsula over a year, but that had ballooned to 2.5million by last year.

Just as Anzac Day has generated growing interest among young Australians in recent years, so a new generation of Turks have come to see the battlegrounds as an important part of their own nation's development.

"At the end of the day, the Dardenelles battles led to the establishment of the Turkish republic," Mr Pepe said.

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Thousands at Sydney dawn service

April 25, 2006 Daily Telegraph - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia

THOUSANDS of people have converged in Sydney's Martin Place for the Anzac Day dawn service.

The service will begin at 4.30am (AEST) in cool conditions, but there is no sign of forecast rain.

Former military veterans are attending, but younger generations are making up most of the early morning crowd.

Last year more than 25,000 people attended the service to commemorate 90 years since the Gallipoli landing.

The New South Wales RSL is expecting similar numbers this morning.

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The return to Gallipoli has become an act of national forgetting

April 25, 2006 Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia

Australians visiting Anzac Cove need to remember they are not celebrating a football victory, writes Bruce Scates.

IN APRIL the Gallipoli peninsula can be a place of breathtaking beauty. The deep still waters of the Aegean glisten like a mirror in the sun; the jagged cliffs that climb up from the shore glow with wattle-gold blossom. Silence sits deep on the landscape, broken only by the distant rumble of tourist buses ferrying Australian pilgrims across the ridges.

Visitors find it hard to imagine the peninsula as anything but beautiful. Even the tiny cemeteries scattered across Anzac Cove are ablaze with colour: rosemary, iris and forget-me-nots soften the long sharp rows of headstones. It's hard to imagine that men lie buried there, let alone the filth, disease and the violence that claimed them.

Perhaps remembrance at Gallipoli is also a careful act of forgetting. Every year the speeches run the gamut of patriotic cliches. No one, it seems, ever doubted the sanity of massed attacks on well-defended trench lines; no one shook with fear or died a long, painful, inglorious death from dysentery.

Unveiling the commemorative site in 2000, the Prime Minister, John Howard, made much of the Anzacs' sacrifice and said nothing of the appalling losses suffered by their allies. Nothing of the massacre of conscripted Algerian troops, forced to fight for an empire that enslaved them; nothing of the 20,000 British troops whose lives were thrown away by ageing and incompetent generals. Nor do Australian politicians often remind us of the losses suffered by Turkey. More than 8700 Australians were killed in the campaign, a figure which was overwhelmed by the number of Turkish deaths as they fought to defend yet another ageing, incompetent empire.

At Gallipoli, we confuse remembrance with entertainment, commemoration with spectacle. Today's travellers seem very different to the first pilgrims to make their way there, old men and women mourning sons lost to war, backs bent with grief as they trudged along the ridges. No tour buses for them, no "boomerang bar", no air-conditioned commentary.

This year again, the cemetery at Lone Pine will be decked out like a football stadium, the cry of "Aussie Aussie Aussie" will batter the breeze, and enterprising stall holders will ply their souvenirs and shish kebab. At Gallipoli, history has been grossly commodified; a T-shirt one can wear, an experience purchased with an air ticket.

There are many who are deeply troubled by the appearance of this Anzac festival, the name Turks give to the tourist bonanza in April. It is easy to dismiss or deplore much that happens there, easy to mistake the massed Australian flags on Anzac Cove as the same raucous nationalism that marred the beaches of Cronulla.

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All too quiet on the Western Front

 

April 25, 2006  Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia

It's time to shift the focus from Gallipoli to a forgotten arena of heroics, writes Jonathan King.

GALLIPOLI may have a dearly held place in the national psyche, but this honour really belongs to the Western Front. For never have so many Australians fought so hard in the one campaign to achieve such great results - and that includes all wars.

The 8709 brave young Australians who were killed at Gallipoli, out of the 50,000 who fought there for eight months before retreat, cannot be forgotten. The numbers from the Western Front, however, are even more staggering - 42,270 Australians were killed, out of the 250,000 who fought there for 2 years before they won.

They fought without let-up. Australians won Victoria Crosses and military medals in battle after battle. These soldiers were all volunteers, two conscription referendums in Australia having failed. It was the only all-volunteer army to serve the entire war.

Unlike at Gallipoli, by 1918 Australians on the Western Front were fighting for an Australian commander. He was Melbourne's General John Monash - considered by historians to be the best strategist of all. So good was he, inexperienced Americans asked him to train them on arrival.

Although Australia's five divisions constituted only 10 per cent of 50 allied divisions, they nevertheless occupied about 25 per cent of German territory and captured 25 per cent of German prisoners, arms and ammunition, helping to end the war six months ahead of Britain's May 1919 schedule.

Monash promised that "the story of your glorious and decisive victory will re-echo throughout the world, and will live forever in the history of our homeland". The soldiers wanted to be remembered, especially those who wrote poems before going over the top, to their deaths.

But that victory has not lived forever in their homeland because their achievements were not taught properly in schools nor handed down through the generations in a nation stuck on Gallipoli. Ninety years on, many Australians don't know where the Western Front was.

This is partly because the British claimed credit for winning the war and English history books dominated schools. It was eight decades before Australians got a memorial in London. A former Sydney Morning Herald journalist and official war correspondent, Charles Bean, answered back in his Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, but this academic tome was no bestseller.

The tragic defeat at Gallipoli became legend, but, by contrast, the consequential victories achieved by Australians on the Western Front were lost to history and overtaken 20 years later by another world war.

It wasn't until the 80th anniversary of Monash's most successful battle, at Hamel, that France bestowed the country's highest bravery award - the Legion of Honour - on all remaining diggers.

But now we need books by Australians explaining Australian achievements. The Australian War Memorial's exhibition Turning the Tables in World War I helped and this year descendants of soldiers from the Western Front were invited to lead the Canberra march.

Australians did turn the tables once their five divisions formed an Australian Corps under Monash in May 1918 because this soldier's soldier introduced modern strategies that broke trench-warfare stalemates. An intelligent and innovative, German-speaking engineering graduate, of Jewish-Prussian parentage, he applied military tactics learned in the civilian army.

Having gained sufficient authority within British command, Monash launched a series of assaults, claiming attack was less costly than defence. And better for morale - he promised to feed his troops on victory. Australians liberated the French town of Villers-Bretonneux on April 25, 1918 - the third anniversary of Gallipoli - inspiring residents to erect a sign in their schoolyard that is still there today: "Never forget Australia."

Monash's use of modern warfare at Hamel became a textbook model. Rejecting outmoded cavalry strategies, he pioneered lightning strikes, using modern planes, tanks, heavy artillery and the efficient Lewis gun to minimise infantry losses.

Americans who helped to win the war first served under Monash in this pivotal battle, which he staged on July 4 (American Independence Day).

Australians played a key role in capturing the Amiens railhead on August 8;, they punched a 20-kilometre hole in Germany's front line, then capturing the fortress-like Mont St Quentin and Peronne. Bean described it as "a stunning blow to five German divisions and one of the crowning achievements of the AIF in World War I". The Australians also liberated many other villages before retiring after Montbrehain, in October 1918.

Germany's General Eric Ludendorff said his August 8 defeat was "the blackest day" in the history of the German army. General Georg von der Marwitz added: "Once they gained moral ascendancy, Australians established such dominance, the mere entry of two or three Australians into a trench was sufficient to send all German hands into the air, quaking."

Monash reported: "I doubt whether there is any parallel for such a performance in the whole range of military history." The French premier, Georges Clemenceau, said: "We knew, from Gallipoli, you would fight a real fight, but we did not know that from the beginning you would astonish the whole continent with your valour."

King George drove to Amiens, called for a cushion, lifted his sword and knighted Monash on the spot - the first time a monarch had knighted anybody in the field for more than a century, and the last time it happened.

The British prime minister, David Lloyd George, said: "Monash was, according to testimony of those who knew well his genius for war and what he accomplished, the most resourceful general in the British Army. Although the British Army unfortunately did not bring him into prominence, had he been given the opportunity, he could have risen to the highest rank."

Although British records may have buried these achievements, Australians should now focus on learning more about the Western Front - so we can commemorate the 90th anniversary properly, and so the stories of that "glorious and decisive victory" can re-echo through our homeland, after all.

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Crowds gather for Melbourne service

April 25, 2006 Daily Telegraph - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia

THOUSANDS of people have begun flocking to Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance for the traditional Anzac Day dawn service.

Crowds began arriving about 4.30am (AEST) ahead of the service which begins at 6am.

More than ten thousand people - rugged up in jackets, scarves and beanies - are expected to turn out for the service.

Many have begun jostling for space around the shrine forecourt, beneath a star-studded sky on a cool Melbourne morning.

Among them is Abbotsford woman Tracey Paull, who has made the dawn service an annual pilgrimage.

"Because it's a family tradition, we come every year. My grandfather was in the war."

Today is the 91st anniversary of the ill-fated Anzac landing at Gallipoli in Turkey.

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Turkey plans Gallipoli facelift

By James Button, Gallipoli
April 25, 2006 The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia

BIG changes are happening on the Gallipoli Peninsula as it prepares for today's Dawn Service to mark the 91st anniversary of the ANZAC landing in 1915. But the changes are not so much about Australia and New Zealand as about Turkey, and they reflect struggles over modern Turkish politics and identity.

In an investment plan worth about $A100 million, announced to Australian journalists on Monday, the Turkish Government is planning high-tech simulation centres at Gallipoli to commemorate the 1915 battles, as well as new roads and facilities.

What the centres will look like is unclear, but Turkey's Forestry and Environment Minister, Osman Pepe, said they would portray the land and sea battles of 1915 "using the most advanced technology".

It is unlikely one will be installed at Anzac Cove, as the key battlefield sites for Turkey are on higher ground and further south on the peninsula. The Turkish Government also consults regularly with Australia on the maintenance of Anzac Cove.

From May, it will require every Turkish tour group that visits the battlefields to be accompanied by a guide, who will tell the story of the Gallipoli campaign and protect sensitive areas of the peninsula, Mr Pepe said yesterday in Canakkale, near Gallipoli.

Protecting the peninsula has become a much bigger issue than the roadworks that have been criticised in Australia.

Up to 2002, about 300,000 Turks visited Gallipoli every year. This year the number is expected to reach 2.5 million, according to Mr Pepe's figures.

The visitors are presented with conflicting accounts of what happened in 1915, said local historian and journalist Gursel Goncu.

On one hand, nationalist guides stress the central military role at Gallipoli of Mustafa Kemal, or Ataturk, who in 1923 founded Turkey's modern nation.

On the other hand, a growing number of Islamist guides minimise Ataturk's role at Gallipoli.

They speak of Turkish martyrs to Allah and say the battles were won by God.

The division reflects the struggle between secular and religious forces in modern Turkey said Mr Goncu, who some years ago wrote an article deploring the trend.

Gallipoli, where more than 80,000 Turks died (compared to 8500 Australians) was far too important in Turkish memory to become an ideological battlefield, he wrote.

Turkey's Government, which is moderate Islamist, has a highly ambivalent attitude towards Ataturk, and some people fear that its new system of guides will continue the trend to play down his role.

But Mr Goncu does not think that is why the guides have been introduced. Ataturk's memory remains sacred in Turkey, whatever the Government thinks.

Mr Goncu thinks it wants, above all, to profit from the rise of mass tourism at Gallipoli. The changes are not about "protecting the sites, they are about show business. There is also a national election next year. Gallipoli has become a big issue."

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Melbourne Herald Sun - Australia www.heraldsun.news.com.au

Lone pine the final casualty
Fiona Hudson - Gallipoli  - 24apr06

THE famed tree at Gallipoli's Lone Pine memorial is suffering from unusually harsh weather.

Gardeners are taking special measures to nurse the tree, but worry the extreme weather will hasten its demise.

Two major snowfalls in January and February were followed by heavy rain and now by drought-like conditions.

Those in charge of the tree's care say growing foot traffic through the memorial is also taking a toll, as soil compaction affects its roots.

Australian officials who inspected the pine yesterday warned it might not survive to the 100th anniversary of the landings in 2015 -- and could even struggle to make the 95th anniversary.

Office of Australian War Graves director Maj-Gen Paul Stevens said that, while steps were being taken to preserve the tree, it would die eventually.

"We're keeping an eye on her: she's so old now. Obviously, we're taking all measures to lengthen the life of her," he said.

"We'll have to see how we go. It would be nice if she lasted until the 100th anniversary services, but she may not.

"We have seedlings . . . to replace her with."

Concern for the tree's soundness emerged as preparations continued for tomorrow's Anzac Day ceremonies at Gallipoli.

Last-minute road repairs along the Anzac Cove coastal strip weren't yet complete, though up to 10,000 Australians and New Zealanders were expected to descend on the area.

Dress rehearsals were planned at dusk, and Governor-General Michael Jeffery was due to inspect Australia's most sacred battlefields.

The tree at Lone Pine was planted in 1926 from seeds taken from the original, destroyed in the early days of ferocious fighting between the Anzacs and the Turks.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission regional supervisor Ian McQuigg said a special machine was being used to pump air around the roots of the tree to help lengthen its life.

The recent winter had been among the worst in living memory, he said.

"It is abnormal weather. The locals said it was the worst they could remember.

"The tree is OK. There is some brown fringing on the outside, which is normal. We'll do some more aeration and mulching."

Gardeners had grown a selection of smaller trees using seeds from the original that were on standby to replace the tree, he said.

The Lone Pine memorial commemorates the 3268 Australians who died in the Gallipoli campaign and have no known grave, and more than 1000 more who were buried at sea.

Lone Pine was the scene of some of the most ferocious fighting, including the 1st Australian Infantry Brigade's bayonet attack on the Turkish trenches.

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Daily Telegraph - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia April 25, 2006

Iraq death adds to Anzac solemnity

A BOY from the bush who became an elite soldier will be foremost in the minds of thousands of Australians commemorating Anzac Day today.

Twenty-five-year-old Private Jake Kovco, from the Victorian rural town of Briagolong, died from a gunshot wound last Friday in Baghdad while serving with Australia's elite security detachment.

While the tiny Gippsland village will especially remember the larrikin who dreamed of joining the army from an early age, the rest of the country will commemorate Australia's first Iraq war casualty among the tens of thousands of other soldiers who have died in the line of duty.

Prime Minister John Howard will be among the thousands to attend services at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

About 25,000 people are expected to attend the Cenotaph in Sydney's Martin Place at first light to mark the 91st anniversary of the ill-fated landings at Gallipoli in 1915.

In Perth, Vietnam veterans will lead Anzac Day marches for the first time in Western Australia's history - marking the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan.

Brisbane's march will be led by seven-year-old Tayla Bocos, who two years ago expressed her concerns to Mr Howard about how veterans were treated.

Darwin has cancelled its dawn service and march as the city prepares for the arrival of category five Cyclone Monica.

Governor-General Michael Jeffery is representing Australia at Gallipoli, which is taking a more sombre approach to the commemorations after last year's complaints of alcohol, rock music and litter.

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Melbourne Herald Sun - Australia

Mateship myth query
Fiona Hudson 24apr06

A STUDENT who won a prized Anzac Day competition with an essay criticising the concept of mateship says a visit to Gallipoli has strengthened her views.

Jenny Song, 15, is on a Federal Government-funded trip to Turkey as one of seven winners of the annual Simpson Prize.

The Year 10 student from Sydney was surprised to win the trip.

"I thought it would go to someone who supported the Anzac myth. It's not really questioned, and it should be," she said.

In her essay, Jenny -- whose mum is Chinese and father Canadian -- describes mateship as "an exaggerated, glorified perspective of the desperate bond between men faced with the horrors of World War I . . . The significance of mateship as an egalitarian and national principle has been overrated, with many Australian groups excluded from this idea."

Australian War Memorial education manager Andrew Gray said the essay was the most challenging.

Fellow prize-winner Melburnian Nadia Vittoria took a less controversial view, writing about the ways the Anzac spirit still exists today.

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April 24, 2006. 7:25am (AEST) www.heraldsun.news.com.au

PM lobbied in Western Front memorial bid

The Prime Minister is being lobbied to help erect a Canberra memorial to the Australian soldiers who served on the Western Front.

ACT Opposition Leader Brendan Smyth says he has written to John Howard in the lead up to Anzac Day, saying that it has been 90 years since the World War I conflict in France began and veterans' families should have a memorial on Anzac Parade.

Mr Smyth says there are already memorials remembering the battles of Gallipoli and Palestine.

"More than 44,000 Australians died in France and Flanders and yet they have no significant commemoration on Anzac Parade," he said.

"I think it's a dreadful oversight. I think their story is of great courage, great tenacity and fortitude.

"I think it's been overlooked because we celebrate Anzac Day and we celebrate the legend of Gallipoli on the day of that first landing, but from mid-1916 through to the end of World War I, just about every major offensive on the Western Front was led by Australian troops."

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Gisborne Herald - Gisborne,New Zealand

Gisborne children send banner to Gallipoli

By Staff reporters

Monday, 24 April, 2006

 

THERE will be a little piece of Gisborne left on the shores of Gallipoli this Anzac Day.

Labour MP Moana Mackey, who was selected as a member of a parliamentary delegation, will present a wreath on behalf of Gisborne RSA and a banner made by the Barnardos OSCAR programme children.

She will also present a banner on behalf of the Whakatane RSA and a wreath from the Opotiki RSA.

The delegation, led by the Speaker of the House, Margaret Wilson,will visit Brussels and Turkey during Parliament’s recess.

Before travelling to Turkey, the delegation visited Brussels for discussions with members of the European Parliament.

Ms Wilson said the relationship with the European Union was a significant one for New Zealand and the future direction of institutional reform was of considerable interest.

Ms Wilson will head the New Zealand delegation at the Anzac commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 24 and 25.

She will speak at three services, starting with the Turkish International Service on Monday.

The following day, she will speak at the dawn service at Anzac Cove and the New Zealand national service at Chunuk Bair. She will sign books of honour at Canakkale and Ankara.

"It will be a solemn occasion and it is important that we recognise Turkey has done much to transform the great sorrow of the Gallipoli campaign into a deep and abiding friendship between our two nations," said Ms Wilson.

Thousands of New Zealanders are expected at the Turkish Anzac Day commemorations as many have done in past years.

Ms Mackey and Ms Wilson are joined by National Party MP’s Colin King and Paula Bennett and United Future deputy leader Judy Turner.

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NEWS.com.au - Australia

Memorial's lone pine at risk

From:

By Fiona Hudson April 24, 2006

THE single tree at Gallipoli's Lone Pine memorial is suffering because of unusually harsh Turkish weather.

Gardeners are trying to nurse the tree back to health but say the elements may hasten its inevitable demise.

Two major snowfalls in January and February, followed heavy rains and now drought-like conditions have hit the tree hard.

Those in charge of its care say increasing crowds in the Lone Pine memorial are also having an effect as soil compaction harms the roots.

Australian officials inspected the pine yesterday and warned it might not live until the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in 2015, and may even struggle to make the 95th anniversary.

Office of Australian War Graves director Major-General Paul Stevens said while steps were being taken to preserve the tree, it was inevitable it would eventually die.

"We're keeping an eye on her, she's so old now. Obviously we're taking all measures to lengthen the life of her," he said yesterday.

"We'll have to see how we go. It would be nice if she lasted until the 100th anniversary services but she may not. We have seedlings to replace her with."

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Enthusiasm of youth not disrespect

April 24, 2006 Courier Mail - Australia

 

IT is 91 years since the Gallipoli landing. The last of those Australians who served in World War I have gone, and now the ranks of those who served in World War II are dwindling.

Yet when we gather as a nation tomorrow to remember those who fought and often died in active service abroad we will do so, as we have in recent years, in record numbers. It is proof that the spirit of Anzac Day will not die, as some fear, with our veterans.

It is true that the tone of the ceremony has changed in recent years.

What was once a sombre commemoration with an emphasis on death and tragedy now has a more festive spirit, with armies of smiling children proudly waving Australian flags and often sporting their grandparents' medals in various parades around the country.

For some, the inclusion of family members in the Anzac march is threatening to turn the day into a carnival. But that implies a measure of disrespect for our veterans, and we see no evidence of that.

Indeed, what might have become a day more of nostalgia has been revived by the enthusiasm of thousands of young people who cherish those Anzac values, such as sacrifice and mateship, that have become such an integral part of our national psyche. And more young Australians than ever are making the pilgrimage to Gallipoli to honour and remember those who died defending our freedom.

We should be encouraged that so many young people are taking the spirit of Anzac Day to heart, especially in an age where the elevation of celebrities and sports figures to iconic status has sought to confuse success with heroism. Clearly the feats of some are our athletes are to be admired, but these people, as Keith Payne, our last soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross, told Qweekend on Saturday, are champions, not heroes.

We only need to look at Payne's own story of gallantry and the selfless deeds of the 95 other Australians awarded the VC to know that. These are our true heroes.

But they are not the only ones. Every man and woman who has served in our armed forces is worthy of our praise, and thanks. The tragic loss on Friday of the first Digger to die in Iraq was a reminder that war is a dangerous business, even when you are not directly engaged in combat.

Private Jacob (Jake) Bruce Kovco, 25, a father of two from Sydney, died when his gun accidentally discharged – a gun he would not have been carrying if he were a banker or a bus driver back in Australia. His name will now be added to a list of more than 102,000 Australians who have died in the line of duty since Australian and New Zealand Diggers touched down on the beaches of Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. We will remember all of them tomorrow. And celebrate the values they died defending.

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Veteran collapses and dies as Last Post plays

A former New Zealand soldier leading a platoon collapsed and died at the foot of a war monument as the Last Post played during the dawn service in Auckland.

Sydney McGuire, 62, died as heavy rain and winds failed to deter tens of thousands of people from attending Anzac Day ceremonies across New Zealand.

The service at the Auckland Museum and War Memorial carried on as medics attempted to save the life of the Malaya campaign veteran.

McGuire was about to give his platoon an order to turn and face the cenotaph when he tripped and fell face forward to the concrete.

Ambulance staff said McGuire died from a suspected heart attack soon after falling.

About 15,000 attended the rain-soaked ceremony in New Zealand's biggest city, while 5,000 turned out in better weather at the National War Memorial in the capital Wellington.

"Every year we get more and more young people. It is fantastic and look at the turnout with the weather. It is amazing," Auckland parade coordinator Des Harrison said.

But Anzac commemorations in the Year of the Veteran in this country have been overshadowed by a controversy over the proposed sale of Victoria Cross medals.

Veterans and the government have responded angrily at the families of two Victoria Cross recipients considering selling their medals, the Commonwealth's highest award for bravery.

The government had tried to pay $NZ1 million ($A851,426) to prevent a sale by the daughters of Word War II hero Captain Charles Upham, the only combat soldier of any Commonwealth army to have won the VC twice.

The women have been offered $NZ3.3 million ($A2.81 million) for his VC and Bar, and believe they might be worth $NZ9 million ($A7.66 million) on the international market.

The government's measure passed a deadline without a response.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark spent the day in her Auckland electorate attending three local services.

Clark paid tribute to individuals and organisations who assist and support war veterans.

"It is important for us to remember that the impact of service can be considerable; not only for the veterans themselves, but for their spouses, their families, and their communities," she said.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters attended the dawn service at the Australian Memorial in London and three other Anzac events in the British capital.

Australian High Commissioner John Dauth laid a wreath alongside New Zealand cabinet minister Annette King at a ceremony inside the Wellington monument.   April 25, 2006

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Pilgrims perch at Anzac Cove

Hundreds of Australian and New Zealander backpackers spending the night before a dawn ceremony at Anzac Cove.
Photo: Reuters

April 25, 2006
 

A service marking the 91st anniversary of the beginning of the Anzac legend is underway in the pre-dawn darkness at Anzac Cove in Turkey.

Thousands of Australians, New Zealanders and Turkish visitors made the pilgrimage to Gallipoli for the Anzac Day service.

New Zealand's Major-General Clive Lilley said people were drawn to Gallipoli on Anzac Day not to celebrate war but to honour the soldiers' courage.

"Anzac Day has a simple theme - it is about remembrance," Maj-Gen Lilley told the gathering.

"We are here this morning to remember those who served our countries during conflict and crisis.

"We are not here to celebrate battle today or to applaud carnage or to glorify war.

"However, to overlook the deeds of those before us would in some way devalue them and leave us poorer for failing to acknowledge them."

Maj-Gen Lilley evoked the image of dozens of transports and warships sitting off the shores of Anzac Cove, carrying thousands of young men from many nations representing the alliance of the British and French empires.

"I'm sure they all felt a sense of excitement on this, their first operation, knowing full well that their young courage was about to be tested," he said.

"For the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the Anzacs, this was to be their defining moment.

"However it was not to be success in this battle that would earn these young men a place in our history and in our memories."

The Anzacs' courage in the face of adversity confirmed their place in history, Maj-Gen Lilley said.

"We try to understand the conditions of the battle, the closeness of the fiercely determined Turkish soldier, the ruggedness of this landscape, the cold, the searing heat, the flies and the disease," he said.

"It is their individual courage, their compassion, their comradeship and their resolve that has etched their memory into our respective nations' heritage and into our lives."

The crowd was told Anzac Day was an opportunity to celebrate the values that many Australians and New Zealanders consider admirable - friendship and unity, courage, self sacrifice, loyalty and freedom.

"This morning it is sorrow and a great loss that draws us to this place, Gallipoli," Maj-Gen Lilley said.

"But along with the sentiments of sorrow and loss, we also come with an admiration of bravery, comradeship and human spirit."

Australian Governor-General Michael Jeffery took those at the service back to the events of the morning 91 years ago when the Anzacs landed and the legend began.

"Perhaps it's from the relative safety of our time that we can fully comprehend the scale of what was won and lost in the hard-fought battle of the Gallipoli campaign," Major-General Jeffery said.

"We lost the campaign with 26,000 casualties but had won for us an enduring sense of national identity based on those iconic traits of mateship, courage, compassion and nous."

Maj-Gen Jeffery called on the audience to recall the sacrifices of all Australians at that time.

"Today, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, at this most moving of places, we are summoned to recall the battle sacrifices of Australian farmers and teleclerks, teachers and labourers (who fought) and to commemorate outstanding courage and strength of character in the face of incredible and sustained adversity," he said.

"But in losing the campaign, they won us a greater prize - an enduring sense of national identity.

"Let us never forget."

A letter by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Ataturk, was also read to the gathering.

"Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country, rest in peace," it said.

Margaret Wilson, speaker of the NZ parliament, addressed the service as the darkness began to lift, revealing flags at half mast and the sizeable crowd, many members of which were dressed in beanies and draped in flags.

Several prayers preceded a wreath laying ceremony which included floral tributes from Australia, New Zealand and several other nations, including France, India, Ireland and South Africa.

A reading of The Ode was followed by The Last Post, two minutes silence, and Reveille.

The national anthems of Australia, New Zealand and Turkey concluded the formal service.

AAP www.smh.com.au

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Gallipoli, a contested ground still

 

There are more than 1500 war memorials in NSW, the one on Anzac Bridge being among the best known.
Photo: Steven Siewert

 

By James Button Herald Correspondent at Anzac Cove
April 25, 2006 www.smh.com.au
 

BIG changes are happening on the Gallipoli peninsula as it prepares for the dawn service today to mark the 91st anniversary of the Anzac landing in 1915. But the changes are not so much about Australia and New Zealand as about Turkey, and they reflect struggles over modern Turkish politics and identity.

In an investment plan worth about $100 million announced to Australian journalists on Monday, the Turkish Government is planning high-tech simulation centres at Gallipoli to commemorate the 1915 battles, as well as new roads and facilities.

What the centres will look like is unclear but Turkey's Forestry and Environment Minister, Osman Pepe, said they would portray the land and sea battles of 1915 "using the most advanced technology".

It is unlikely one will be installed at Anzac Cove, since the key battlefield sites for Turkey are on higher ground and further south. Its government regularly consults Australia on the maintenance of the site.

From May it will require every Turkish tour group that visits the battlefields to be accompanied by an official guide, who will tell the story of the Gallipoli campaign and protect sensitive areas of the peninsula, Mr Pepe said at a dinner in nearby Cannakale.

Protecting the peninsula has become a far bigger issue than the roadworks that have been much criticised in Australia. In 2002 about 300,000 Turks visited every year. In just four years the number has skyrocketed to 2.5 million, according to Mr Pepe's figures.

The visitors are presented with conflicting accounts of what happened in 1915, says a local historian and journalist, Gursel Goncu.

On the one hand, nationalist guides stress the central military role at Gallipoli of Mustafa Kemal, later to become known as Ataturk, who in 1923 founded the modern, secular Turkish nation.

On the other hand, a growing number of Islamist guides minimise his role. They speak of Turkish martyrs to Allah and say the battles were won by God. The division reflects the struggle between secular and religious forces in modern Turkey, says Mr Goncu, who a few years ago wrote an article deploring the trend.

Gallipoli, where more than 80,000 Turks died (as against 8500 Australians) was far too important to Turkish memory to become an ideological battlefield, he wrote.

Turkey's Government, which is moderate Islamist, has a highly ambivalent attitude to Ataturk, and some fear its new system of guides will continue the trend towards playing down his role.

But Mr Goncu does not think that is why the guides have been introduced. Ataturk's memory remains sacred in Turkey, whatever the Government thinks. Mr Goncu believes that above all it wants to profit from the rise of mass tourism at Gallipoli. The changes are not about "protecting the sites, they are about show business. There is also a national election next year. Gallipoli has become a big issue."

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This is no day for posturing

Illustration: Spooner

 

April 25, 2006 www.theage.com.au
 

Australian visitors to Anzac Cove may miss the message of the horror of war, writes Bruce Scates.

In April, the Gallipoli peninsula can be a place of breathtaking beauty. The deep, still waters of the Aegean glisten like a mirror in the sun. The jagged cliffs that climb up from the shore glow with wattle-gold blossom. Silence sits deep on the landscape, broken only by the distant rumble of tourist buses ferrying Australian pilgrims across the ridges.

Visitors find it hard to imagine the peninsula as anything but beautiful. Even the tiny cemeteries scattered across Anzac are ablaze with colour: rosemary, iris and forget-me-nots soften the long, sharp rows of headstones. It's hard to imagine that men lie buried there, let alone the filth, disease and the violence that claimed them. The recreated trench lines around the killing field of the Nek look like something out of a theme park. Young travellers clamber playfully along the parapet.

As a historian, I sometimes wonder if remembrance at Gallipoli is not also a careful act of forgetting. Every year the speeches on the shore run the usual gamut of patriotic cliches. No one, it seems, ever doubted the sanity of massed attacks on well-defended trench lines; no one shook with fear or died a long, painful inglorious death from dysentery.

And most important of all, the names of the fallen are usually the names of Australians. Unveiling the commemorative site in 2000, Prime Minister John Howard made much of the Anzacs' sacrifice and said nothing of the appalling losses suffered by their allies. Nothing of the massacre of conscripted Algerian troops, forced to fight for an empire that enslaved them. Nothing of 20,000 British troops whose lives were thrown away by ageing and incompetent British generals.

Nor do Australian politicians often remind us of the losses faced by Turkey. More than 8000 Australians were killed in the campaign, the flower of our county's youth cut down in their prime - but as many as 150,000 Ottoman soldiers also died on the peninsula, fighting to defend yet another ageing, incompetent empire.

At Gallipoli, we confuse remembrance with entertainment, commemoration with spectacle. This year again, the cemetery at Lone Pine will be decked out like a football stadium, the cry of "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!" will batter the breeze and enterprising stall holders will ply their souvenirs and shish kebab. At Gallipoli, history has been grossly commodified: a T-shirt one can wear, an experience purchased with an air ticket.

There are many who are deeply troubled by the appearance of this Anzac festival, the name wily Turks give to the tourist bonanza in April. It is easy to dismiss or deplore much that happens there, easy to mistake the massed Australian flags on Anzac Cove as the same raucous nationalism that marred the beaches of Cronulla.

But that, as I said, would be mistaken. In my book Return to Gallipoli, I've surveyed several hundred Australians who have made their way to Anzac. For most, it has been a pilgrimage that affected them deeply, an encounter with something greater than themselves, a journey into history.

Many were distantly descended from the men who lost their lives there. Some were named after uncles missing since 1915. Several remembered ageing aunts who grieved away a lifetime. For them, the journey to Gallipoli was a chance to lay a body to rest, to complete a process of mourning denied a generation. All expressed a need to run their fingers across a name, their name, chiselled softly in the stark white stone of Gallipoli.

But for other travellers too, the peninsula proves a storied landscape. Even the youngest (and least well-read) of travellers described Gallipoli as sacred, a place where hearts were broken as much as nations were made, one mass grave that consumed a generation. "Walking on the beach, I felt a tingling up my spine", one wrote. "History came alive, it spoke to me."

And for all the furious flag-waving, one encounters something deeper than nationalism. Within a day of arriving at Anzac, young visitor Priscilla ceased to see the fighting "from an Australian point of view".

"On Gallipoli, there are the graves of so many nations, the experience of these men transcended nationalities. I thought about human loss, human bravery - the loss their families would have felt. I felt despair at the wasted lives all around me," she said.

These are not the words of some puerile nationalism; they confront the common tragedy of war and confirm our common humanity. And like every traveller to Anzac, Priscilla gazed in wonder at Ataturk's words carved in stone by the sea, words spoken to some of the first Australian pilgrims to stumble across the shingle at Anzac: "You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on our land they have become our sons as well."

Ataturk's words remind us that the greatness of Gallipoli is not well served by the posturing and rhetoric of John Howard's Anzac Day. Here is a message of reconciliation our deeply divided and much-embattled nation would now do well to remember.

Bruce Scates teaches Australian history at the University of New South Wales. He is the author of Return to Gallipoli: Walking the Battlefields of the Great War, published by Cambridge University Press.

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Australian soldier blows a trumpet during a ceremony at Australian Lone Pine monument in Gallipoli
 

25 Apr 2006 Source: Reuters

 

 

Australian soldier blows a trumpet during a ceremony at the Australian Lone Pine monument in Gallipoli, Turkey April 25, 2006, to mark the 91st anniversary of the World War I campaign of Gallipoli. Some 4,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers struggled ashore this narrow beach 91 years ago in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign that would claim more than 130,000 lives, at the edge of this remote peninsula in western Turkey.
REUTERS/FATIH SARIBAS

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Large Anzac crowds please organisers

Wednesday, 26 April 2006. 07:45 (AEDT)Wednesday, 26 April 2006. 06:45 (ACST)Wednesday, 26 April 2006. 06:45 (AEST)Wednesday, 26 April 2006. 07:45 (ACDT)Wednesday, 26 April 2006. 04:45 (AWST)

Organisers have reported large crowds for this year's Anzac Day commemorations throughout the New England and north-west.

That was particularly evident in Armidale where more than 2,000 people met to remember Australia's war dead at Central Park after lining up to 10 deep in the streets to watch the march-past of veterans.

The president of the Armidale sub-branch of the RSL, Dr Kevin Smith, says he is particularly pleased others from different theatres of military services took part in yesterday's activities.

"Talking about the sons and daughters of Anzacs who served in places such as Korea, Vietnam and those who continue to serve in peacekeeping forces around the world," he said.

Thousands turned out for observances in Tamworth.

Crowds gathered on Peel Street to watch the parade, made up of ex-servicemen, current members of the Defence Force and relatives of those who have died in service.

Col Lowe is an ex-national serviceman who fought in Borneo and Malaya from 1966 to 1968.

"We just had our reunion, haven't seen some of the fellas for 30, 35 years and to see them all again it just brings back so many great memories and there's something that sticks to you that's hard to explain, but that mateship is still there, even after 35, 37 years, you get back to them and it's just like yesterday," he said.

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Brothers' deaths in Gallipoli devastated rural community

By Rosemary Roberts  Northern Advocate - Whangarei,New Zealand 24.04.2006

Jack King of Whangarei never knew his two uncles killed during the 1915 Gallipoli campaign but he can't talk about their deaths without his eyes filling with tears.

Hayward and Ben Harrison died within three weeks of each other, aged 27 and 25 respectively. Their deaths devastated their exceptionally close-knit family and shocked the small community of Maungaturoto where they had grown up.

Jack King was born 17 years later but grew up very much aware of an ongoing sadness about the loss.

"I felt the sadness was about losing a whole future dimension of family as well as the men themselves," he says.

He and his older brother Eric (now 82) were often reminded of their dead uncles because Eric turned out to be `the living image' of Hayward Harrison, and people in the district were more than once rocked when they first saw him as a young adult, thinking they were seeing Hayward.

Jack achieved some closure by visiting Gallipoli in 1995 with Eric and their wives Sue and Betty.

"I had wanted to go for as long as I could remember ... it was unfinished family business," he says. The visit left him feeling he had done the right thing by his uncles and he says since then he has found it easier to talk about their deaths.

Ben and Hayward were in the same platoon and sailed for Europe in the main body of the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force (8000 men) in October 1914, arriving in Egypt late November.

Six months later they were sent to Gallipoli. Seven months after that they were both dead.

Hayward died of a throat wound at Walker's Ridge on July 12. Ben, who was close by when his brother was killed, spent the whole night gathering stones to make a burial cairn in a sheltered gully. He apparently paid a fellow soldier to incise a makeshift gravestone. Hayward's body was recovered after the war and buried at nearby Ari Burnu cemetery.

Ben died on August 8 in a long and fierce battle to relieve the Wellington troops at the top of Chunuk Bair. Two hundred and forty eight men made it to the top, including Ben, only to find themselves in what a survivor described as "the mouth of hell". Close friend Sandy Donaldson of Maungaturoto saw Ben go down. Later that night the whole area was set on fire by shell-fire. Ben's body was never recovered.

Jack says he was always puzzled that his mother and her sister spoke as though they were not quite sure what happened to Ben.

"They seemed to have it in their minds that he might have ended up in a Turkish hospital with head wounds and not known where he was. They must have been advised of how and where he was lost but I suppose thinking he might be in a hospital was a way of coping with the situation," he says.

At Gallipoli Jack and Eric climbed down into the trenches on Chunuk Bair and up to the top of the mountain. They were shocked to realise how unprotected the New Zealand troops had been from the Turkish machine-gunners above. "No wonder they were mown down - it was slaughter," says Jack.

They also visited the boys' gravestones in Ari Burnu.

They were alone but felt far from alone, Jack says.

"It was almost like standing on a stage with a huge audience you couldn't see," is the nearest he can get to describing the eerie feeling of the place.

"Health and wealth permitting", Jack hopes to attend the 100th anniversary of the campaign in 2015.

Jack is certain of one thing - "when the shooting stops, you look around and find nobody is a winner".

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Special Broadcasting Service - Australia http://www9.sbs.com.au/radio/index.php?page=wv&newsID=133752

FINALLY, REAL STORIES FROM GALLIPOLI
25.4.2006 18:18:19

The story of embedded reporters isn't new. They weren't invented for the US-led Iraqi invasion three years ago.

In fact, for Australia, they go back to the Gallipoli campaign of World War One.

Charles Bean -- Australia's official war correspondent -- and Philip Schuler -- the official photographer on Gallipoli -- recorded first-hand, life in the trenches alongside the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.

They cabled their official stories back to Australia. But, they also kept personal diaries, with uncensored accounts of events on Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula.

These official and unofficial stories have been combined for the first time, in a book called, Gallipoli: Untold Stories from war correspondent Charles Bean and front-line Anzacs.

Historian Jonathan King and photojournalist Michael Bowers gained unprecedented access to photos from the Australian War Memorial.

They want their book - published on the 90th anniversary of the campaign - to shake general apathy towards this country's troops still being committed to distant, modern-day wars.

They sat down with Judith Hug for today's Authors' Perspective, produced by Caroline Davey...

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Australia's fallen war heroes remembered

The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia April 25, 2006

Thousands of veterans, families and active service personnel have remembered fallen war heroes at the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in Canberra.

The majestic monument on Anzac Parade was also honoured by being placed on the National Heritage list.

Traditional Anzac Day commemorations centred around the 65-year-old AWM, with a record 27,000 people attending the dawn service led by Anglican chaplain Royce Thompson.

The RAAF chaplain said the thousands of Australian men and women serving overseas were continuing the Anzac tradition by facing evil at every turn.

"It is a time to be inspired by their sacrifice and courage, so that we might play our part in seeking to confront the evil in our world," he said.

Among the 16,000 people that attended the mid-morning Anzac parade were Prime Minister John Howard, administrator of the Commonwealth Marie Bashir, acting for Governor-General Michael Jeffery who was in Gallipoli, Chief of the Defence Force Angus Houston and New Zealand High Commissioner Kate Lackey.

The ceremony culminated with the laying of floral wreaths by dignitaries and defence personnel to honour those who had made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

During the sombre ceremony, RSL head Bill Crews said the Anzac forebears and all whose names were on the AWM roll of honour would be proud of Australia.

"They knew better than we ever could that nationhood was born of sacrifice and it was in the horror of warfare, where lives are destroyed and the dreams of our youth are forever lost, that our national identity was forged," he said.

Prime Minister John Howard said the large crowds at the ceremonies included many young people who were embracing Anzac history.

"This process has been gathering pace now for some years," Mr Howard told reporters.

"It hasn't just suddenly come upon us. It is a wonderful thing that so many young Australians are interested in not only the war history of this country but the history of this country."

Mr Howard said he also remained open to the possibility of creating new memorials dedicated to those who served in the Western Front in World War I and the Battle of Australia in World War II.

Mr Howard said he believed all Australians would strongly support the heritage listing of the AWM.

"I never cease to be amazed by the number of visiting foreign heads of government who, having been to the war memorial, say how incredibly impressed they are with its scope and its detail and the concepts that lie behind it," Mr Howard said.

In Iraq, the dawn services in Baghdad and at Camp Smitty in Al Muthanna province were especially poignant for soldiers who had just lost a comrade.

In Australia, with no surviving World War I combatants, crowds gathered to cheer on veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, East Timor and more recent conflicts such as Afghanistan and Private Kovco's war, Iraq.

Australians were urged to think of their 2,000 compatriots still serving in many of the world's hot spots, as well as those from past conflicts.

In Sydney, Air Vice-Marshall John Quaife said: "Today our thoughts should be with those young men and women in the Solomon Islands, in the Middle East, in Timor, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Also our thoughts should be with the family of Private Jake Kovco."

Governor-General and former Special Air Service commander Sir Michael Jeffery, on his first visit to Gallipoli, focused on the sense of national identity arising from the campaign.

The original Anzacs may have lost the 1915 campaign in the Dardanelles, but they "won us a greater prize - an enduring sense of national identity", he told the dawn service at Anzac Cove.

"Let us never forget."

As two members of Papua New Guinea's famous "fuzzy wuzzy angels" marched in Sydney in full tribal dress, a dawn service paid homage to their courage and mateship at the very place they showed it in WWII - back at home on the Kokoda Track.

Former chaplain of the Australian army, Monsignor John Butler, said 50,000 volunteer "angels" had displayed the true qualities of mateship by carrying the Australian force's ammunition, fuel and wounded along the treacherous jungle track.

At the gathering in Papua New Guinea attended by federal Human Services Minister Joe Hockey and Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd, Monsignor Butler said Kokoda Diggers "might not have invented the word but they certainly showed us how to live it".

"Mateship takes the word friendship and elevates it to a higher plane," he said.

Anzac Day crowds again came out in force, with numbers estimated at 30,000 in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, 20,000 in Canberra, 15,000 in Brisbane and 10,000 in Adelaide.

Australians and New Zealanders even managed a small gathering at a beach in Honiara, despite the cancellation of official services because of riots in the Solomon Islands.

At Hellfire Pass in Thailand, scene of the WWII "Death Railway", Australia's ambassador Bill Paterson said Anzac POWs "died and endured hardship so that we may live in peace and security".

In Dili, Timorese Democratic Union spokesman Helio Tavares praised Australian WWII soldiers who fought the Japanese in the country's rugged jungles, saying: "The Timorese really value that relationship with Australia and we can see it today."

In Auckland, Malaya veteran Sydney McGuire, 62, collapsed and died of a suspected heart attack as the Last Post played during the dawn service.

In Afghanistan, Australian soldiers held a low-key commemoration of the day.

Australia has a special forces task group working with United States forces in Afghanistan, comprising 150 SAS troops, commandos and support crew.

Earlier this year they were joined by a security and reconstruction task force working with the Dutch-led provincial reconstruction team.

A defence department spokesman said the soldiers held a brief ceremony to honour Anzac Day.

"They marked it in the usual way," he said.

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Eye on the front line

Cindy Lord  April 26, 2006

THE televised nature of war is something we take for granted these days.

So, it's easy to forget that moving pictures of Australians at war during WW1 and WW2 were a rare commodity, largely coming to audiences via the cinema newsreel.

Two famous pieces of war reportage– Ellis Ashmead Bartlett's film of Gallipoli and Damien Parer's footage of the Kokoda campaign – can be viewed online and give rare on-the-spot views of those two conflicts.

Considered the most important piece in the Australian War Memorial film collection, "With the Dardanelles: heroes of Gallipoli" is original footage from Anzac Cove and Gallipoli filmed by Bartlett in 1915 (http://smh.com.au/gallipoli/video/video.htm).

With its images of troops in Gallipolli, Suvla, Helles and Imbros, the work of the British cameraman captures the essence of the legendary Anzac spirit.

Covering another iconic Aussie battle in a Voice of Australia newsreel on the New Guinea campaign, , ace Australian war correspondent Damien Parer introduces his report (www.ww2australia.gov.au/asfaras/video/video.html) just eight days after parting company with advanced troops at Kokoda.

Described as a "reliable observer", he talks of the "uncanny war" in the jungle where "Japs" are largely unseen.

The academy-award winning film, Kokoda Front Line, includes footage of the jungle terrain highlighting the struggle to maintain supply with air drops, troops advancing single-file along the famed Kotota track, front-line fighting and the return of the wounded on stretchers born by natives who maintained a relay through the unrelenting rain that turned the track into a quagmire.

The Australian War Memorial (www.awm.gov.au/) has databases, photographs, which can all be bought (I found one of my grandfather at Gallipoli), and a Kids HQ.

A collaboration with Britain's Imperial War Museum has produced a comprehensive online presentation on Gallipoli for military enthusiasts.

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At Mt Maunganui, wreaths were laid at the RSA after rain forced the service inside. Picture / Alan Gibson

 

Anzac Day services: Thousands pay tribute despite heavy rain

The New Zealand Herald 26.04.06 www.nzherald.co.nz

Smaller centres around the country reported record turnouts for yesterday's Anzac Day services, particularly among young people.

Nearly 600 members of the public and 70 old soldiers attended the Northern Wairoa Returned Services Association's service at the RSA Cemetery in Dargaville.

"It was a massive crowd there today - the biggest we have ever had," said RSA vice-president Warren Osbaldiston. "It has been building up every year."

In Bluff, home of the country's most southerly RSA, about 100 people attended the dawn service at the Grove Memorial.

Bluff RSA secretary Bruce Henderson said the numbers were about the same as previous years but there was a growing awareness of the parades later in the day, particularly among young people.

"It is encouraging for us because we are a dying breed," said Mr Henderson, who served in Malaya and Borneo. "It makes me feel good. It makes me feel very proud."

In Kaitaia, home of the country's northernmost RSA, president Wynn Wells said the turnout of young people was a great encouragement to the RSA members.

"It means a lot to us. Young people want to know what happened to their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers."

About 90 old soldiers and about 250 members of the public turned out.

Among the other Anzac services held around the country yesterday:

WELLINGTON

About 5000 people gathered at the Cenotaph in perfect conditions for the dawn service. The ground shook as a gun was fired at 5.45am to herald the dawn. Hymns were sung and band music played.

RSA national president John Campbell said young New Zealanders did not realise how much it meant for the veterans to see them at the dawn service.

"The spirit of Anzac is as relevant today as it was all those years ago," he said.

He also asked the crowd to remember New Zealand's Vietnam veterans.

"They went because they were sent ... and they felt betrayed by the nation when they returned. We hope no New Zealander has to return to the country the Vietnam veterans returned to."

Seven-year-old Kate Montu, great-granddaughter of the late Sir Howard Kippenberger, who fought in both world wars, said the ceremony was exciting. Her 5-year-old sister, Charlotte, said she wanted to be a soldier when she grew up.

A vigil was mounted at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior until 6 o'clock last night.

WHANGAREI

Many children were among the estimated 2000 people who gathered for the dawn parade.

Many of them were "uniformed youth", as RSA president Archie Dixon described them - Navy, Army and Air Force cadets, Scouts and Guides, school parties.

Others were in civvies but decorated with their grandparents' or other forebears' medals.

As in many parts of the country, the ceremony was held amid heavy rain, which left many of the participants drenched.

ROTORUA

A retired lieutenant colonel urged Maori to "be proud" and "stand tall" in honour of young warriors who sacrificed their lives in war.

Aubrey Balzer, the guest speaker at Rotorua's dawn service at the Muruika Services Cemetery, said no other infantry battalion had a more distinguished record, saw more fighting or had such heavy casualties as 28 Maori Battalion

Children, teenagers, parents and grandparents stood side-by-side and arm-in-arm and sheltered themselves under buildings, umbrellas and hats to be part of the early-morning service.

Mr Balzer encouraged Maori to be proud because "our young warriors earned us the right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other freedom-loving peoples of the world".

He highlighted the tragedies faced by the Maori Battalion - 640 soldiers killed, or one in every six who served - and 2598 Maori casualties.

"We, as a small race, paid dearly with the lives and blood of the finest young men of our people. They did so for the love of their country - Aotearoa - and so that we here in New Zealand could continue to live in the freedom, in the peace and the harmony, all of which are precious to us all," said Mr Balzer, who served in World War II.

MT MAUNGANUI

Rain forced the Mt Maunganui ceremony indoors for the first time in 20 years, to the RSA instead of at the cenotaph.

Hundreds of cars streamed down a wild, windy Marine Parade only to be turned around.

The Mount RSA's caretaker, Eddie Pinkerton, braved the heavy rain and cold to redirect the public as they arrived at the cenotaph.

"It's amazing how many people are still coming out," he said.

"We had the [loud]speakers out this morning and they were all blown over. The chairs were flying everywhere."

However, some people were determined to confront the pouring rain to lay a poppy at the cenotaph.

"This is nothing compared to what they went through," said Lynn Woodyard, who visited the monument with her daughter Amy to pay tribute to her father, who was a wing commander in the Royal Air Force in World War II.

Nearly 2000 people packed the RSA for the service.

President Ces Hughes said the ceremony lost some of its atmosphere by being inside, but the turnout was impressive - especially the number of younger faces.

"More and more people, especially the youngsters are coming ... I think this is because at the Mount we have a team visiting all schools explaining poppy day and Anzac Day," he said. "The other reason is that there is a lot more publicity in the media about it."

BULLS

RSA vice-president Iain Trott said Bulls had its biggest parade for many years.

"About 400 people turned out, and for a little town like us [that] is really wonderful," he said.

The dawn service started at 6am and at 6.15am two Air Force Iroquois helicopters flew past as people lay wreaths on the cenotaph.

Unlike many parts of the country, the weather was fine for the service, but rained later in the day.

"There was a mixture of all sorts of people," Mr Trott said, "and I was quite impressed with the number of young people who came up and laid poppies on the cenotaph. To me that topped it off."

He said there were no speeches at the RSA, where everybody gathered after the service. "They're all too busy trying to get to the bar."

MOTUEKA

Around 350 people battled torrential rain to attend the dawn service.

"We were very pleased with the number of people we got, because a lot of people didn't come out because of the rain," Motueka RSA secretary/ manager Warwick Burke said.

The service ended up being held in the local hall, next door to the memorial, because of the weather.

Following the dawn service, the RSA put on breakfast for around 300 people.

REEFTON

Bad weather also forced the main service indoors at Reefton.

"For the second time in 40 years we had to have our service in the war memorial hall rather than at the cenotaph," RSA past president Dom O'Sullivan said.

The dawn service drew as big a crowd as ever, he said.

"It was very impressive, with about 50 people attending."

RIVERTON

RSA secretary Murray Fraser, whose father was a returned serviceman, said around 80 people attended the dawn parade at 7am.

"That's about 10 to 15 people up on last year. It's getting more and more every year."

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New Zealand remembers war dead

Wellington - Thousands of New Zealanders turned out to dawn services at war memorials on Tuesday as the country remembered those who died in conflicts over the last century.

Crowds ignored rain and winds in many cities as they honoured the nation's war dead with hymns and prayers in traditional fashion on Anzac Day.

It was the 91st anniversary of the day the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) launched an illfated assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula, which was intended to give Britain and its allies control of the Turkish-held Dardanelles.

The assault, which ended in failure eight months later, cost New Zealand more than 2,700 dead and 4,752 wounded.

The Gallipoli campaign has been described as the first test of nationhood for New Zealand - then a British colony - and its coming of age.

In an Anzac Day message, Prime Minister Helen Clark said, 'Let us today, and every day, further honour the service of our veterans by our continued commitment to peace in the world.

'Large numbers of our servicemen have died on overseas battlefields, or as a result of wounds sustained there.

'Many of those who survived conflict returned home maimed in body. All brought back memories that others cannot imagine,' Clark said.

'We who have not gone to war must find ways of recognizing the service and the sacrifice of those who have,' she said.

Monsters and Critics.com - Glasgow,UK  © 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur  April 25 2006

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Gallipoli was the start of a very special Anzac relationship

By  Iain Gillies Gisborne Herald - Gisborne,New Zealand

Tuesday, 25 April, 2006

WAR can fascinate. At the same time its collective brutality horrifies. And we only have to look at our news pages every day, or turn on the television news, to see that we are indeed once again treading that dangerous path towards a large-scale conflict.

Today’s wars — terrorism — are not measured in battles won or lost but simply in lives lost. And the toll this year already is a hideous waste of human life.

Anzac Day has often been misinterpreted as a celebration of war. But those who know its meaning could not agree.

There are no cheers on Anzac Day. It celebrates no victory. Almost perversely, its date is fixed by a military enterprise that was a disaster of enormous cost . . . the Gallipoli campaign.

Ninety-one years ago tomorrow, a force of 75,000 Allied soldiers landed on the beaches at Gallipoli.

Among them were 30,000 volunteers from Australia and New Zealand. They made up the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, a title that has come down through history as Anzacs.

The assault on the steep hills of Gallipoli was part of a daring plan to force the Dardanelles, eliminate Turkey from the war, and turn Germany’s flank.

It failed.

What we commemorate tomorrow is no military triumph but the triumph of human courage.

At Gallipoli, our people with no military tradition, measured themselves against the best and found no cause for shame.

The war in which the Anzacs fought marked a turning point in our tradition. The senseless, purposeless slaughter defined the time when our civilisation moved from an unquestioning liberal optimism to scepticism.

We began questioning the basic assumptions of our society.

In addition, the Anzac courage and sharing of a fierce ordeal at Gallipoli has become a symbol of the relative togetherness of New Zealand and Australia. It is another reason for the mateship, leg-pulling and co-operation between us.

Out of the Gallipoli disaster came a bond that is something of a new-born brotherhood . . . although nobody wants to admit it.

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EDITORIAL: Just what would we die for now?

Hawke's Bay Today - Hawke's Bay,New Zealand 25.04.2006

LOUIS PIERARD

It is not surprising that each year's Anzac Day commemorations should exert such a draw on many young people.

In an age of moral equivalence and risk aversion there is a fascination and appreciation of a generation whose values were so clearly defined that to defend them they willingly committed themselves to unimagined horrors.

That the Great Adventure should have turned out to be the Great War, in which men faced death on a huge scale, was never anticipated. The army of clerks, shopkeepers, farmers, labourers and businessmen who embarked for Gallipoli were civilians.

The Expeditionary Force was a collection of amateurs dressed in khaki. Most of their commanders were from Civvy Street. Colonel William Malone, the hero of Chunuk Bair, was a 56-year-old lawyer from Stratford, Taranaki.

They were ordinary people who didn't think twice that the principles by which they lived were worth taking up arms to defend.

We understand and respect death and we admire those who submitted to danger and deprivation, so far from home. But what drove them there carries a sense of mystery, nevertheless.

Gallipoli is often described as a defining moment in New Zealand's history. While it might seem paradoxical that we should be commemorating a notable military failure, the Dardanelles Campaign was a watershed that established the identity and sense of nationhood for both New Zealanders and Australians. That, at least, is why we mark the occasion and remember with a shared passion those who fought or died.

While there may be that common sense of nationality, three or four generations later, with those who fought in our name there is no denying that there is something incongruous about the spirit.

Our lot has improved immeasurably with the passing of the years. But while one would never contemplate a rerun of Gallipoli, there is an unmistakable yearning for the qualities that drove those men there.

What we admire in them was not their warmaking but mutual respect, courage, duty and self-sacrifice that bring meaning to life. What, now, would we be prepared to risk death for?

Today, few opportunities are available to satisfy the innate, pioneering sense of adventure. Furthermore, the pursuit of self interest and immediate gratification of the appetites in a sea of equivocation - in which ambivalence and lack of conviction are mistaken for virtues rather than vices - creates a thirst for the certainties of life that did not elude our forebears; those for whom standards were more than just flags.

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Fred Thorby, 91 and with 66 years in brass bands behind him, takes up the conductor’s baton at a Brass Wanganui rehearsal.

Gallipoli landing remembered in concert programme

24.04.2006 Wanganui Chronicle - Wanganui,New Zealand

By LAUREL STOWELL

THE LANDING at Gallipoli – which began nine months of hell for New Zealand soldiers – will be remembered with a special number at an Anzac Day concert in Wanganui.

The 6pm concert at the Royal Wanganui Opera House will include Behold the Narrows, written by the musical director of the New Zealand Army Band after he visited the Dardanelles and Gallipoli.

“He was taken aback. He came home and wrote the piece, which describes the whole thing. It’s very evocative music,” Brass Wanganui musical director Bruce Jellyman said.

The 1915 Gallipoli campaign was the moment when New Zealand soldiers first fought and stood their ground on their own.

As such, it was a defining moment for the nation.

Mr Jellyman had noted that Anzac Day was now celebrated as enthusiastically as any other New Zealand national day. And he thought this year was a good time for another Anzac Day concert.

Tomorrow’s is to include Brass Wanganui, Marie O’Leary, Sharon Ross, the Wanganui Savage Club and the city’s Air Training Corps.

The music would all be based around wartime, coming right up to the Vietnam War era with a rendition of We All Live in a Yellow Submarine – arranged as a march.

A special guest at yesterday’s rehearsal for the concert was Fred Thorby, “a senior bandsman of many many years”. Mr Thorby, of Bulls, was given an old cornet at the age of 15. Until 1933 he rode 12km on horseback to get lessons.

Then he bought a motorbike, and he and his teacher were both able to join the Marton Brass Band.

The band used to play at garden parties, and in Marton Park’s band rotunda.

During World War 2 Mr Thorby played both cornet and saxophone for troops arriving and leaving. In 1946 he joined the Ohakea Air Force Band as well, and often travelled with them to Wellington for functions.

The Marton band went into recess in 1986, and in the 1990s Mr Thorby began helping out with Wanganui’s Auxiliary Garrison Band.

He went on playing until 2000, when he was 85 years old, and is the patron of Central Districts Brass Bands.

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Book Review: Anthem For Doomed Youth:
  Twelve Soldier Poets of the First World War

Published in 2002 and now reissued in sturdy paperback format, this anthology by Jon Stallworthy serves as a shrewdly judged introduction not just to World War I poetry but to the war itself.

For each poet, Stallworthy provides a brief biography and succinct, insightful commentary, together with a full-page portrait, a few representative poems and a range of photographs depicting life (and death) in the trenches.

Born at the tail end of Victoria's long reign, the 12 writers chosen came of age at a time when the dominant style of verse was an effete romanticism, tidily rhymed, often infused with sentimental Christianity and generally favouring pretty descriptions of rural scenery. They struggled to find an appropriate language to express the horror and misery of trench warfare.

The two poets most successful in forging a new language were Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, friends who met in 1917 while recuperating at an Edinburgh hospital for the wounded and shell- shocked.

Sassoon, an exceptionally brave man nicknamed "Mad Jack" because of his fearlessness under fire, began the war as a loyal English patriot with a chivalric view of armed combat. His outlook changed forever on July 1, 1916, when 19,000 of his comrades were killed and a further 38,000 injured during a single day's ill-planned fighting at the Battle of the Somme.

Raging against the incompetence of the military high command that led to this carnage, Sassoon wrote a series of magnificently bitter satires that have lost none of their bite 90 years later.

Owen's temperament was less fiery than Sassoon's, though he shared his friend's anger at the waste of young lives. (The anthology's title is borrowed from one of his most famous poems, Dulce et Decorum Est.) His body of work is not large, but Owen is unequalled among World War I poets for emotional subtlety and technical prowess.

Stallworthy clearly has an affinity with Owen. His 1974 biography of this writer won a swag of prizes, and his 1983 edition of Owen's poems is exemplary in its scholarship and completeness.

But Stallworthy deals fairly with the other poets in his collection too. Although he does not disguise their shortcomings, he is mindful of the pressures they were under and the grim fact that most of these writers did not live long enough to reach their full potential.

Rupert Brooke died from heatstroke, dysentery and blood poisoning in April 1915, en route to the Dardanelles. Julian Grenfell died in a French hospital from wounds to the head a month later. Owen, Charles Sorley, Francis Ledwidge, Edward Thomas and Isaac Rosenberg were killed in action. Ivor Gurney survived the war physically - but not mentally. He spent the last 15 years of his life in an asylum.

Sassoon, Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden and David Jones lived to be old men, they were haunted by horrific memories.

Stallworthy is a poet and a former soldier. Hence his sensitivity to the material. Though London-born, he has several New Zealand forebears. His great-great- grandfather, George Stallworthy, was a missionary who settled in Auckland after many years preaching in the Pacific Islands. His great- grandfather, John Stallworthy, was MP for Kaipara, north of Auckland, from 1905 to 1911. And his grandfather, A J Stallworthy, was MP for the Mt Eden electorate in Auckland from 1928 to 1935.

For readers curious to investigate Stallworthy's own poetry, I recommend A Familiar Tree, which traces his New Zealand connections, and The Anzac Sonata, which includes his interpretation of the Gallipoli campaign.
23 April 2006  www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3645956a4501,00.html

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ABC Online - Australia

Rain fails to deter NZ Anzac Day crowds

Thousands have braved wet and windy weather throughout New Zealand to attend Anzac Day services.

This year has been designated Year of the Veteran in New Zealand.

It is also the 90th anniversary of the Returned Services Association.

A single drum beat and a column of veterans marching to Auckland's hilltop cenotaph marked the start of New Zealand's 67th Anzac commemorations.

There has been a a surprisingly strong turnout for the pre-dawn ceremony, which has been conducted in the rain.

Young people and family groups huddled under umbrellas alongside some of the 250,000 Kiwis who have served in war and peacekeeping duties.

Also present are current Defence Force personnel whose comrades are currently deployed in 19 missions around the world, including the Solomon Islands, and invariably alongside Australians.