Anzac Day NT: Services across Top End and Central Australia
Territorians have shown up in huge numbers at dawn services and parades to pay their respects to servicemen and women this Anzac Day. SEE OUR PICTURES AND VIDEOS
Northern Territory
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ANZAC Day events have kicked off across the Territory, with thousands pouring out to pay their respects to Australian and New Zealand soldiers at dawn services and parades.
HOTEL DARWIN TWO-UP MARCH 2022
Festivities continued at 12pm on April 25 for the traditional Two-Up gambling game.
Illegal on most other days of the year Hotel Darwin was abuzz with punters trying their luck.
Lucky winner Nick Gibson said the tradition was about the Australian sense of community.
“Everyone’s here to have a good time in honour of serving Australians,” Mr Gibson said.
“It brings us together, if we don’t have these traditions we will forget our culture.”
Able Seaman Thomas Rutsch said the age-old game remembers what the ANZACs did and “we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them”.
DARWIN CBD ANZAC DAY MARCH 2022
Spirits were high in Darwin this morning, as generations of service men and women prepared to walk through the City Centre.
Knuckey Street was lined to the brim with Territorians excited to commemorate past and present Australian and New Zealand soldiers.
They waved their Australian flags high in the air as the Army walked to the tune of Waltzing Matilda to honour and celebrate Australian troops who served in World War One and those who continue to carry the torch today.
Veteran Jack Smith said ANZAC Day is important to him as a veteran himself but also for his family as every generation has always served and gone overseas.
“It’s about the people that have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the country,” Veteran Smith said.
Red Shield defence serviceman Gerald Mitchell boosts the morale of the soldiers following them wherever they are exercising to provide refreshments, biscuits and lollies.
Mr Mitchell said it’s about commemorating that day in World War One, Gallipoli but also everybody since.
Cadet at 801 Squadron Hamish Niemeier said it’s important to commemorate soldiers that lost their lives to give them the respect they deserve.
“It gives me someone to look up to seeing what they have accomplished in their life,” Cadet Niemeier said.
Crowds clapped in recognition, proud to be honouring the contributions of past and present Australian soldiers.
ALICE SPRINGS’ 2022 ANZAC DAY DAWN SERVICE
CENTRALIANS have gathered at the cenotaph in Garden Cemetery on Monday, watching on as 100-year-old Rat of Tobruk, Sydney Kinsman, laid a wreath to commemorate 107 years since Australia’s entry into World War I.
NORFORCE Sergeant Scott Allen presided over the Dawn Service, describing Anzac Day as “an important time to pause and reflect on what this commemoration means for us as a nation and as individuals”.
“As a serving soldier, there is a long line of servicemen and women that connects me to those who stormed the shore over 107 years ago today,” he said.
“That line is formed by battlefield names such as Gallipoli, the Somme, Villers-Bretonneux, Tobruk, Al Alamein, Kokoda, the Bombing of Darwin, Kapyong, Long Tan, Timor, Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Sgt Allen said the service was about honouring the 100,000 men and women “who, in the ultimate act, put service before self in our nation’s name” since the landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.
“That is why we remember them, the first Anzacs, and all of those who have followed,” he said.
“They have left us that legacy and we in turn commemorate their sacrifice when we ask what legacy we shall leave for those who follow us - we have not forgotten and we are defined, at least in part, by the act of remembrance.
“It makes us who we are and reminds us, in the face of an unknown future, who we can be - courageous and compassionate, resolute and resilient, a people of our own time, reaching back over 100 years, with pride and sombreness, looking forward with a sense or purpose to a better world.”
Sgt Allen noted the diverse group of locals who had come out in the pre-dawn half light, “standing in the cold, the dark, and the wet”, to remember the fallen.
“Yet even as we stand here in this darkness and the cold, waiting for the day to break, we sense that there is something special in this moment, something precious and sacred in this time and space.”
PALMERSTON’S 2022 ANZAC DAY DAWN SERVICE
A silent crowd stood to attention around a large cross lit up in poppy red at Palmerston.
Only the call of the playing lorikeets broke the silence, before the blare of bagpipes started to welcome in the dawn at Memorial Park.
The Palmerston RSL sub-branch service called on the attendees to reflect and honour the bravery and courage of Australian defence personnel, both past and currently serving.
“To think about their mental and physical suffering caused by their service, and the pain, loss and suffering it has caused their families,” the RSL representative said.
“We must take steps to avoid the glorification of war.”
DARWIN’S 2022 ANZAC DAY DAWN SERVICE
AT 6am on April 25, the hum of a didgeridoo reverberated Bicentennial park as Territorians filled the green lawn in streams and surrounded the Cenotaph.
They gathered to remember and never forget, the past and present service man and women, and most importantly, the atrocities which occurred 107 years ago to date, on the shores of ANZAC Cove.
Via cars, bikes, E-scooters and on foot, more than 6000 people attended the the Darwin CBD Dawn Service including distinguished guests like Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Hon Administrator of the NT Vickie O’Halloran, deputy leader of the opposition Richard Marles and most significantly, past and present serving soldiers.
Every year when the sound of the horn breaks the silence of Dawn on April 25, Adrian Pike feels “shivers” down his spine.
His daughter, Paige Pike (3), has participated in every Dawn service since she was born.
“I just think it’s a good thing for her to take part in,” Mr Pike said.
Each year during the service, Mr Pike thinks of his Pa who fought in WWII.
“My father marches every year in Melbourne for him,” he said.
To cap off the morning, attendees of the Dawn Service ceremony including Mr Pikee, piled into Darwin CBD pubs like Darwin Hotel, for a ‘couple of quiet ones’ at 7am.
A sense of pride is written across everyone’s faces, the young and old, everyone who gathered for the same reason on Monday morning – to never forget.
ANZAC DAY EVE FOOTBALL MATCH: ADF VS PFES
WHAT ANZAC DAY MEANS TO TERRITORIANS
OLIVIA White dons a poppy pinned over her heart as she looks over to her dad.
“The ANZAC spirit to me is about being thankful for the life we have,” the eight-year-old said.
Major Adam White and partner Corporal Vittoria Vitiello manage busy careers in the Australian Army and four children at home.
“What many don’t realise is the sacrifices we make even for our own family,” Major White said.
“I missed my daughter’s first birthday, we both juggle school drop offs and assemblies … but to me the Anzac spirit is about personal sacrifice, respect and community.”
Deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq on various missions, Major White recalled the kindness of people he met in situations he had never imagined.
“Having been to those places it gave me a greater understanding and appreciation of the freedoms we have here … a gratitude for those sacrifices people made before me.”
Major White has served overseas during the past two decades but he pays tribute to the service men and women who have spent the past three years responding to domestic disasters. “We have sent more than 500 servicemen and women to bushfires, floods, aged care facilities and border security,” he said.
“Many of them have spent the better part of the last three years away assisting other Australian families during disasters.”
Corporal Vitiello has been sent to disaster relief in the past, taking her at the time away from base and home.
“In my first year I helped with the floods of NSW; we left training in Karpooka to go sand bag Wagga Wagga,” she said.
“And then when I was posted in Townsville we assisted with the clean-up and response after Cyclone Yasi.”
For the husband and wife team, military service has spanned generations.
Both Major White and Corporal Vitiello were inspired to join the service in honour of their grandfathers – great grandfather in Major White’s case. As a result, passing the tenants of the Anzac spirit on to their girls is critical.
“For us as a service family it’s important (our girls) uphold the traditions of the day,” he said.
“We want them to understand those values of respect, and also community.”
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