Saturday, April 25, 2015

ANZAC



#LestWeForget



March 2015 - Melbourne Australia



We were lucky to have met some Aussies on a Mekong River cruise and they graciously showed us around their home city of Melbourne in March. The Shrine of Remembrance was a highlight and I would love to spend more time there.

ANZAC Day, originally a commemoration of the landing of Australian and New Zealand forces at Gallipoli on the 25th April 1915, has grown to become perhaps the most important national day in Australia.



ANZAC is an acronym and stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corps, the name given to the body of troops raised by the two countries to aid the British Empire in the Great War. Throughout the war Australian and New Zealand troops, or 'Diggers' and 'Kiwis', would live, fight and die alongside each other creating a bond that still exists today between the two nations.





 ANZAC Day is also inextricably linked with the landings at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles Strait on the 25th April 1915. On this day ANZAC troops were committed to their first major action of the war, and though the campaign would ultimately prove a bloody failure and leave more than 8,000 Australians dead, it marked the beginning of the Anzac legend.



This legend was poignantly put into words by Sir William Deane, Governor-General of Australia on ANZAC Day 1999:

"Anzac is not merely about loss. It is about courage, and endurance, and duty, and love of country, and mateship, and good humour and the survival of a sense of self-worth and decency in the face of dreadful odds."













6 comments:

  1. Interesting post for me, I had never heard of ANZAC day !

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  2. It is an incredibly powerful, dignified shrine. Appropriate for the occasion.

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  3. It really is a remarkable place - and it has recently undone some major renovations. I just wish politicians would stop remembering with one hand and sending our young people off to die in foreign wars with the other. One day maybe.

    Cheers - Stewart M - Melbourne

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  4. I am not in Melbourne ATM, so we joined in an ANZAC service in Singapore. It was good to read your ANZAC post.
    Wren x

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  5. What a lovely tribute, I enjoyed reading about your visit to the Shrine of Remembrance, I had a visit there in 2007 and few other times. It is a very significant memorial. I wrote about Anzac day and my Grandfather's service and here is the link if you would like to read. http://www.aholeinmyshoe.com/lest-we-forget/ Thank you for sharing your story.

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