‘We will be ready’ for Anzac Day Gallipoli 2015 centenary event — Tim Evans

THE Australian in charge of the Anzac Day centenary commemorations at Gallipoli next year has a simple message: “We will be ready”.

AS THE Australian who has overseen Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli peninsula for the past six years, Tim Evans can rattle off the number of seats in each section at all sites like a parishioner reciting a psalm.

The Department of Veterans Affairs assistant secretary even knows how many port-a-loos there are and the collection schedule of the vital septic trucks.

But he knows people are a strange variable, and on foreign soil, anything can happen.

“Turkey is obviously located in a complex part of the world; if we were on the eastern border with Syria I would imagine there is a complete different risk assessment,” said Evans, who will be the 2015 services director.

Gallipoli’s security threat assessment is low at the moment, but there are so many other things that can go wrong when planning an event of the magnitude of next year’s Anzac centenary that Evans is leaving nothing to chance.

“Everything that can be done will be done and we will be ready,” Evans said.

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“We will be ready” ... Department of Veterans Affairs, Commemorations Manager, Tim Evans.

Gallipoli April 25 2015 will be one of the biggest shows on Earth. Put aside for a moment the importance of the date and the significance at the battle that defined the nations of Australia, New Zealand and Turkey.

But the planning wheel is now so large that Turkey alone has this week created an entire new agency whose sole task is to ensure the event is a success.

That agency is coordinating everything from the 1000 military troops to be deployed across the peninsula on the day, to the quality of roads from Istanbul, to the portable street lamps being strung up along road and gullies to ensure visitors don’t stray into the battle scarred scrub still riddled with tunnels, ordinance and barbed wire. Of course there are many bodies too and for that reason the entire 33,000-hectare national park is a heritage protected site with strict guidelines banning all forms of recreation such as camping and erection of permanent structures. That includes the mammoth infrastructure for the Anzac week; whatever goes up must come down to return to a “green site”.

INFRASTRUCTURE

While the number of pilgrims at this year’s event were only moderately above those of last year, just over 6000, the number of Australian staff from the Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies are larger. That’s because this year is a full dress rehearsal for next year, and that’s not a secret with even the tickets for this year’s event branded “2014 Reconnaissance ***Test Event***”.

There is more of everything. The Turks have a full contingent of police but also more than 1000 soldiers many of whom are discreetly positioned ironically in the trenches their forefathers once occupied, off and on such was the nature of the battle where hill and trench vantages swapped hand five or six times. There are at least five security checkpoints to pass before you can enter the site and a Turkish coastguard intercept ship will be deployed to ensure tourists don’t think they can arrive by boat on the foreshore and avoid the crowds and the balloted ticketed system.

At Lone Pine, an extra 3000 extra seats have been erected for the first time in anticipation of next year and to ensure 8500 ticketed guests in 2015 can take a seat. The extra seats are behind the cenotaph but a large screen will ensure the solemn service can be seen. At the Dawn Service site on the beach there are 5000 seats but then room for another 5000 standing. The latter zone becomes available about 4.30am when those lying down and resting are asked to stand to make way for 1200 others to be held at a staging post about 3km away.

The quality of the roads onto the peninsula, a constant source of criticism in past times, are now exceptional and an extensive road widening project along the D555 highway toward the peninsula as well as resurfacing along other routes expected to carry the more than 10,000 visitors next year are already underway.

PEOPLE

This is the biggest worry that remains.

Of the Gallipoli pilgrimage crowd each year, 60 per cent are aged under 35 years but next year that figure drops by more than half to 25 per cent meaning the remainder will be a much older crowd and that brings with it new challenges. The oldest guest from the ballot system is 99 years old (the youngest is 18). For this, a facility just short of a field hospital with doctors and nurses is to be set up on site backed by a air ambulance to evacuate potential patients to a hospital already prepped on standby. Should the chopper not cope, a high-speed sea ambulance will also be requisitioned and on standby. There will also be a larger than usual special stand at the Dawn Service site for those pilgrims, and their one invited guest, with limited mobility. Should one of the 10,500 ticketed guests decide not to go or die ahead of the event, their tickets go on to those 40,000 others who applied but who missed out of the ballot. Already four tickets have been handed back to two on that list who requested double passes.

“We have had this program in place for number of years,” Evans says. “2014 is a year we have considered to be a dress rehearsal, we have all our infrastructure in place, the only elements that need to be added in 2015 are those that relate to managing the ticketing process everything we need in terms of seating, toilets, power, lighting, staging, what you see in ‘14 we are having in ‘15.

“For us it will be very much a unique event since for the first time ever we will know the (exact) number of people attending but we will know each of them individually and we will be in contact with them several times between May this year and April 25 next year.”

“We are all afriends” ... Commemorations Regimental Sergeant Major Warrant Officer Paul Richardson shakes hand with Turkish Sergeant Kadir Tekin, who fought in the Korean War. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Veterans Affairs Minister Michael Ronaldson and the man tasked with the ballot system is emphatic that only those with tickets should plan to come next year.

And what if organisers are confronted with hundreds of others chancing their luck? “There is no point, you will not come in,” he said yesterday.

For the spill a big screen production is expected to be held in the city of Canakkale across the Dardanelles or some are already booking on one of seven cruise ships being given permission to anchor off Anzac Cove beach to receive a live broadcast of the Dawn Service and Lone Pine Ceremony.

The ADF’s ceremonies Regimental Sergeant Major Warrant Officer Paul Richardson said his men and women who will have vital roles are also ready for next year.

“To be blunt, it doesn’t matter is its 2015 or 2025 Anzac Day here we don’t change what we do,” he said. “We have no problems at all and we are ready.”

WO Richardson said his personnel worked in well with Turkish counterparts taking part in ceremonies including former Sergeant Kadir Tekin, a veteran of the Korean War, who said he looked forward to working with the Australians each year at ceremonies.

“No problems, yes we are all friends, next year yes, yes it will be good,” he said.

ends