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« on: April 28, 2008, 07:48:55 AM » |
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Where they fell, Diggers honoured
Ean Higgins | April 26, 2008
AT Lone Pine at Gallipoli, Hellfire Pass in Thailand and Bomana War Cemetery in Papua New Guinea, Australians gathered to remember what Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon called the "mateship, courage and valour" of Australian soldiers but also to "acknowledge the folly of state-on-state war".
Anzac Day services were held in many parts of the world where, during the 20th century, more than 1.5 million Australian men and women served in eight major wars or conflicts.
Soldiers of the Brisbane-based 2/14th Light Horse Regiment marked Anzac Day just north of Basra, in southern Iraq. The regiment, which forms part of the Overwatch Battle Group, had to run its regular patrols to protect the strategic airbase of Tallil.
"It's a very high-risk area," Warrant Officer Brad Clarke told The Weekend Australian last night. "The guys haven't taken their eyes off the ball."
At the Tallil base, the day started with a traditional "gunfire breakfast" of rum and coffee, followed by a dawn service, bacon and eggs, and games of two-up.
When the patrols swapped over, those soldiers coming back from duty on the streets were set for a barbecue and two beers each, and a "desert Ashes" cricket game against a British unit.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics put out an unusual release, calculating that in the last century more than 100,000 Australians died in action, more than 200,000 were wounded and more than 30,000 were taken prisoner across the eight conflicts. The ABS also noted that war was a time when many young couples took the view that marriage was now or never. The highest rate of marriage recorded in Australia was 12 per 1000 people in 1942, compared with 5.5 marriages per thousand in 2006.
At the birthplace of the Anzac legend, thousands of people, many swathed in blankets or sleeping bags, gathered in the pre-dawn chill on the shores of the Aegean Sea at Gallipoli for the annual dawn service.
Mr Fitzgibbon, in an address shown live on TV, said Australians stood in awe of the commitment and courage exhibited by the Diggers as well as their enemy, the Turks, who were defending their homeland.
As dawn began to break, Mr Fitzgibbon said that of the 60,000 Australians who landed at Gallipoli, 8709 had died, while of the 8500 New Zealanders who fought there, 2721 lost their lives.
Later in the morning, the Gallipoli crowd moved to a wreath-laying ceremony on a sunny but breezy day at Lone Pine, where Australian soldiers fought and won one of the fiercest battles of the 1915 campaign.
In Papua New Guinea, Kokoda trekkers swelled numbers at the dawn service at the Bomana War Cemetery. Almost 500 people attended the service.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, along with others who have been in the country for the PNG-Australia government ministers forum this week, laid a wreath and extolled the virtues of those young Australian men who made the supreme sacrifice. An eerie mist blanketed the 3000 graves of young Australians who fell in PNG during World War II.
Additional reporting: AAP
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