VARIOUS: Anzac Day celebrated across Australia, Turkey, France, Thailand and Afghanistan

Record ID: 480919

  • Title: VARIOUS: Anzac Day celebrated across Australia, Turkey, France, Thailand and Afghanistan
  • Date: 25th April 2008
  • Summary: (BN04) GALLIPOLI, TURKEY (APRIL 25, 2008) (REUTERS) AUSTRALIAN MILITARY OFFICERS WALKING TOWARDS AUSTRALIAN AND TURKISH FLAGS AT HALF MAST / AUDIO OF DRUM ROLL CLOSEUP OF SOLDIER STANDING IN SILENCE SOLDIERS GATHERED AT ANZAC COVE IN HONOUR FORMATION FOR DAWN SERVICE PAN ACROSS CROWD GATHERED FOR DAWN SERVICE AT ANZAC COVER REPRESENTATIVES OF COUNTRIES AT GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN DURING THE WORLD WAR I LAYING WREATHS MAN IN AUDIENCE LEANING ON SOLDIER OF WOMAN IN AUDIENCE GROUP OF PEOPLE IN CROWD WITH AUSTRALIAN FLAGS DRAPED OVER THEIR SHOULDERS
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVA2G8Y8N9JPPML6NAT9707VHNOT
  • Story Text: Thousands of Australians gather at memorial sites around the globe to remember the nation's war dead.
    Crowds of Australians gathered at war memorials across the country to remember the country's war dead as dawn broke Friday (April 25).
    Young and old braved the pouring rain in Sydney as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd laid a wreath at the city's cenotaph. The priest leading the service offered gratitude to the servicemen and women who died in the line of duty.

    "We remember with thanksgiving all those who made the supreme sacrifice for us in time of war," the priest said, addressing the crowd.
    Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by troops from the then 14-year-old federal Commonwealth of Australia during the first World War.
    Today, the public holiday commemorates all Australians killed during military service.
    Attendance numbers at dawn services have steadily increased in recent years, with young people boosting the number of war veterans taking part.
    Rudd travelled back to Canberra to receive the salutes of hundreds more veterans as they paraded past the Australian War Memorial.
    Melbourne's streets were also crowded as veterans and serving officers marched or were driven past cheering masses.
    In Turkey, Australians and New Zealanders gathered at the sites of the Anzac landings in Gallipoli.
    After attending a dawn service memorial at Anzac Cove, people marched to one of the hilltops in Gallipoli known as "Lone Pine", famous for its sole pine tree.
    Alongside officials from Australia and New Zealand, representatives from other countries involved in the Gallipoli campaign including France, Germany, South Africa, Bangladesh and India also attended the service.
    In northern France, crowds gathered for a dawn service held at the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux.

    "The Australians who fought and died here on the western front earned a reputation among allies and enemies alike as tough, courageous and determined soldiers," said Australian Minister of Veteran Affairs Alan Griffin, at the event organised by the Australian Embassy as a once-only commemoration in France.
    Wreaths were laid and poppies placed on war memorials as music played in tribute to the war dead.
    In Thailand, Australian and New Zealand veterans of World War Two also gathered for a dawn service at Hellfire Pass.
    Prayers were said and wreaths were laid in the tropical darkness in Kanchanaburi, 125 km (77 miles) west of Bangkok, where thousands of allied prisoners perished when Japanese soldiers forced them to hack out a pass from solid rock for the Thai-Burma railway.
    More than 13,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and some 80,000 Asian slave labourers died while building the railway linking Japanese-occupied Burma (now Myanmar) and Thailand.

    "This is the fifth time I have come back now, this will be my last time. But it's very moving to come back," said Snow Fairclough, an 87-year-old POW survivor, who travelled from Perth.
    Hellfire Pass was a particularly difficult section of the track where the prisoners had to cut through rock faces with primitive hand tools. It got its name from the scene at night when the prisoners and other labourers, forced to work around the clock, used lanterns to light their work.
    An Australian regiment serving in Afghanistan also paid tribute on Anzac Day.
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