Anzac Day asks us to stand against the erosion of time, says Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese says he ‘feels the weight of history’ in his pride, after hiking two days to a memorial site on the Kokoda Track for Thursday’s Dawn Service, where 99 Australians died and 111 were wounded.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape, left, and Anthony Albanese at Kokoda Village in PNG. Picture: PMO

Anthony Albanese says he “feels the weight of history” in his pride, after hiking two days to a memorial site on the Kokoda Track for Thursday’s Dawn Service, where 99 Australians died and 111 were wounded.

“In the final shadows of the night” at the Isurava Memorial Site in Papua New Guinea on April 25, the Prime Minister remembered the 625 Australians who lost their lives in battles against the Japanese along the Kokoda Track, and the locals who helped them in the face of “retribution and … unfathomable cruelty”, who he promised to “never forget”.

He recalled the Australian and Papua New Guinean troops who fought together in Madang and Sepik provinces, after walking 48 hours “side-by-side” along the track and camping at battle sites with Papua New Guinean leader James Marape.

About 400 trekkers, porters and locals attended the Isurava service, while hundreds of thousands of Australians gathered at Dawn Services across the country.

David Hurley will attend his final Anzac Day service as Governor-General at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, where later, veteran Damien Thomlinson, who learnt how to walk again with prosthetics after losing his legs in Afghanistan in 2009, will become the first person to walk on the new parade ground during the veterans’ March.

“I hope my story can inspire not only other veterans, but also prove the Anzac spirit is alive and well,” said Mr Thomlinson, who will also give the opening address.

At 9am, more than 10,000 veterans and serving members of the Defence Force will march past the Anzac Memorial in Martin Place.

Soon, the sun will rise on the Anzac commemorative site at Gallipoli and the Australian National Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux, where remembrance services will be held.

Defence Minister Richard Marles will be in Gallipoli on Wednesday “honouring the memory of the more than 103,000 Australians who gave their life in service of our country”, reflecting on the Gallipoli campaign as a testament to “mateship and sacrifice”.

Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Matt Keogh, at Villers-Bretonneux, acknowledged the “more than 295,000 Australians (who) served on the Western Front during the course of the First World War”, including the 46,000 killed and 100,000 wounded.

“We stand together at Villers-Bretonneux to remember the remarkable battles 106 years ago that turned the tide of the war, and our troops who gave so much, fighting in our name,” he said.

Mr Albanese said Isurava was a place that had known “the most pitiless ferocity of battle, fought with bullet, bayonet, mortar, and the desperation of bare hands”.

“It is also a place that has seen the unadorned strength of the Australian spirit.”

It resulted in the first Victoria Cross awarded to an Australian on what was then considered Australian territory, Private Bruce Kingsbury of the Second Fourteenth Battalion. “In the words of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Honner, he gave ‘his life that his comrades and his country might live’,” he said. “In our pride we feel the weight of history as we gather here along the Kokoda Track, this great artery of mud and suffering and perseverance that has come to occupy a place of singular power in Australia’s shared memory.”

He thanked every Papua New Guinean who helped in Gona, Buna, Sanananda and Milne Bay. The troops, the coast watchers and ­shipping pilots, “the villagers who risked their own lives to feed and guide and shelter Australians in desperate need”, the stretcher bearers “whose courage was matched only by their kindness”, and the carers.

“We hold to the solemn promise our countries made to the fallen all those years ago: We will remember them.

“Anzac Day has never asked us to exalt in the glories of war. Anzac Day asks us to stand against the erosion of time, and to hold on to their names. To hold on to their deeds.”