On 25 April each year Australians and New Zealanders commemorate their war dead.
ANZAC Day honours the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who died during the almost-suicidal landings at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles.
The part that New Zealand and Australian servicemen and women have played in other conflicts on distant shores is also remembered on ANZAC Day.
Gallipoli was the World War I campaign which forged Australian and New Zealand troops into ANZACs. The Gallipoli Peninsula assault was intended to give the British Navy command of the Turkish-held Dardanelles.
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force which left New Zealand in October 1914 combined with their Australian counterparts to form the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). Along with some British units they mounted the amphibious expedition.
The Gallipoli assault through Anzac Cove began on 25 April 1915, ended some eight months later as a saga of errors and horrors - the planners making the errors and the men enduring the horrors.
NZ Embassy.
2 comments:
It saddens me to see how the young don't seem to know much about the World Wars and others since. Our schools are slowly replacing history lessons with more modern ways of thinking.
I believe every child should be taught about the horror of war - and maybe then they will understand what the older generation sacrificed for them and their future.
One of our local schools went to visit a nazi concentration camp and then did projects on life at that time. Apparently many of them were emotionally overcome by what they experienced. They didn't realise how it really was.
XBox games and such treat it all like an adventure, where troops never die and it's all good fun. What lessons are our young people learning??
I send my thoughts and prayers to you and your countrymen on April 25
So true - thanks for your thoughts Tismee.
I was born just after the war. When my Father arrived home he and my Mum were married - they had had 6 years of waiting while he was overseas.
So I grew up with a Father whose war memories were very fresh in his mind. He never spoke much of the horrors or being scared, mostly about the sights he had seen, the funny incidents, and his comrades. There was a very strong bond between his wartime friends.
His health was never so good and he died suddenly when he was only 54.
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