Crowds young and old gather to remember our fallen heroes
They may no longer be with us but memories of the original Diggers lived on as they were honoured by a new generation of Australians. The Remembrance Day service was moved for the first time after a major upgrade on Anzac Memorial.
They may no longer be with us but memories of the original Diggers lived on yesterday as they were honoured by a new generation of Australians.
Huge crowds gathered across the country for touching services to mark 100 years since the guns fell silent at the end of World War I, a conflict that claimed the lives of 62,000 young Australians.
In a speech to the National Remembrance Service at the Canberra’s Australian War Memorial, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australians had a predisposition for peace but a willingness to defend the freedoms we hold dear.
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“As we commemorate the centenary of the Armistice … we know too well the deep scars of war and long to prevent them from touching an Australian soul,” he said.
“Our human predisposition, our Australian predisposition, is for peace … That’s why war is always a failure of our humanity. Yet we know there are times when even the most peaceful of men and women are called upon to defend the beliefs they live by.”
Sydney’s Remembrance Day service was moved from Martin Place for the first time to the upgraded Anzac Memorial, where two minutes’ silence brought the crowds to a halt at the 11th hour.
Among the thousands who packed Hyde Park were children wearing the medals of their forebears. Chloe Wilson, 7, and her cousin William Burton, 8, said their great-great uncles John McKinnon and Alec Morrison died in the mud of the Somme in 1917.
Private McKinnon, who died aged 21, is buried at Passchendaele cemetery in Belgium. The body of Private Morrison, 26, was never found.
“My mum and grandma are teaching us about them. I think they were very brave,” Chloe said.
Their grandfather Corporal John Morrison served with the RAAF’s 3 Squadron, during World War II.
Yesterday Private Steven Ferrie — who serves with the modern 3 Squadron at RAAF Base Williamtown, near Newcastle — accompanied the family to the Sydney service to help them lay wreaths.
Little Corrie Pither, 3, wore a medal won by her great-great-grandfather Arthur Turvey, who never returned from the Somme.
“It’s 100 per cent very important to me and important for young people to remember what happened and the bravery of those people,” her dad Spencer Pither said.
For Kevin Cram it was a tiring day.
Wearing the medals of his two uncles who fought at Gallipoli and the medals of his father, Mr Cram said he thought he wouldn’t make the service this year after heart surgery.
“It gets a bit harder every year and there are fewer of us coming,” said Mr Cram, who was called up to National Service in the army in 1957.
Queen Elizabeth’s tribute to the fallen of World War I could not have been starker.
When Her Majesty joined other royals for a Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, she bore a cluster of no fewer than five poppies fastened in a brooch was certainly the biggest.
Royal watchers suggested the Queen wore one poppy for each branch of the armed services — navy, army and air force — plus one each for Civil Defence and women.
The royal family, including Prince William and Kate and Prince Harry and Meghan, stood as thousands of audience members at the concert held aloft photographs of family members who served in World War I. British Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip were among those holding photographs.
The event was organised by charity the Royal British Legion as a “thank you to all who served, sacrificed and changed our world”.
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