Record crowds expected to virtually attend Anzac Day
It’s taken coronavirus and social distancing to finally answer a dying Digger’s question from 100 years ago. This year’s Anzac Day could be the event’s biggest commemoration in history.
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During the bloody Battle of Pozieres in 1916, a mortally wounded soldier asked war historian Charles Bean if they would remember him at home, in Australia.
More than 100 years on and the nation can answer ‘yes at home we will remember’ – literally – with millions expected to take a virtual part in what could be the biggest Anzac Day commemoration in history.
“People will remember where they were on Anzac Day 2020,” newly installed Australian War Memorial director Matt Anderson promised of the mammoth unexpected responsibility that has befallen him.
Last December when the respected former soldier and diplomat was handed the prestigious role to lead the nation’s gratitude to their war dead and those still serving in the military, few had ever heard of Wuhan or could imagine they would live under strict social distancing and isolation laws.
But coronavirus and the changed world that it has brought will make this year’s commemoration something more personally poignant and memorable.
Mr Anderson had been preparing for up to 35,000 people to descend to Anzac Parade and the Australian War Memorial’s forecourt in Canberra for the centrepiece of commemorations.
Instead he now is effectively hosting a national event, albeit televised, with a solemn ceremony to go ahead without the crowds who it is hoped will tune in and follow from their home confines with their own tributes.
“In a way we are the focus of the national commemoration when people are no longer travelling to their local cenotaph or local shrine, into Martin Place in Sydney or Kings Park in Perth, people will no longer be able to travel and gather,” he told News Corp Australia.
“Because it is the national televised commemorative event at 5.30 Anzac Day morning that places the Australian War Memorial where I think it has always been – at the centre of the nation’s commemoration for all those who have suffered and died ….
“It’s often these more organic events, where people who may not necessarily have driven into the shrine say at Melbourne but can very easily wake the kids up and go stand at their front gate, or at their front porch or on their balcony and just pause and remember and then talk about it.”
Australia’s chief medical officer Professor Brendan Murphy has given formal approval for an exemption of social distancing restrictions for the commemorative service including the Dawn Service and National Ceremony.
RSL’s across the country have been appealing for all Australians to “Light Up the Dawn”, to take to their street fronts with a candle at dawn to commemorate.
Mr Anderson was completing his tenure as deputy High Commissioner to the UK when he was appointed to what he calls the “greatest of honours”.
His background made him the perfect fit as a recent former ambassador to Afghanistan as well as other senior DFAT posts and before that, eight years as an Australian Army officer.
He had been planning on a volunteer role at the War Memorial after his UK posting, leading tourists around the galleries and instead is leading the institution.
“That was the expectation for myself, I was going to come here and volunteer … funny how things work out,” he said.
Originally published as Record crowds expected to virtually attend Anzac Day
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