Bundaberg Anzac Day 2022 commemoration ceremonies

Thousands across Bundaberg turned out to pay their respects at ceremonies around the region. See the photos.

Wind and rain at the Bargara Dawn Service did not deter the Anzac spirit that could be felt in the air on the 107th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings.

Locals had to park their cars blocks and blocks from the beach and brave walking through the light rain to make their way to the ceremony.

Part of the ceremony’s opening address was translated into French by local Laurent Bordes so that it could be understood as it was beamed to the villagers of Vignacourt in France, who tend Australian soldiers’ graves.

At the Bundaberg Civil Service, locals lined the streets for the annual parade before making their way to Lions Park for the ceremony.

For Finley Simpson, Asta Simpson, Erin Curtin, Sam Simpson, Therese Rich and Saber Simpson, the day has a special meaning because war nurses run in their blood.

The family also attended the War Nurses Memorial following the Bundaberg service.

“It’s only little, but it’s pretty special to the kids,” Ms Rich said.

At the war nurses’ ceremony, the sacrifice of the region’s nurses was spoken of, outlining the horrors of war seen not just from the perspective of soldiers, but of those who tended the injured and dying.

One such nurse was Constance Keys, one of the region’s most highly decorated nurses of Gallipoli.

Ms Keys served aboard a hospital ship as well as in the tent hospitals on the island of Lemnos, along with fellow Queenslander Matron Grace Wilson.

Bundaberg and Bargara Anzac Day 2022

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After that, the Western Front was where these nurses served, in a place where 80 per cent of the more than 60,000 Australian deaths occurred and where almost 150,000 men were wounded or fell ill.

As war raged in 1917, Chalpin Lieutenant-Colonel David Garland described the heroism of these women.

“The patient endurance, the never giving in, the weary round, the aching feet, the fatigue, and the monotony.... our hearts should be filled with gratitude as we thought of all that this meant for our boys so far away from home. We knew that loving, thoughtful, unselfish, never-failing, unsacrificing care would be given to them day and night”.