Anzac Day 2023: Thousands of Tasmanians gather to pay their respects at Dawn Services across the state
Thousands have gathered across Tasmania for Anzac Day services, including major ceremonies at Hobart, Launceston and Burnie.
Tasmania
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LONGFORD: It was a sombre 11am service at Longford on Tuesday at 11am, as Northern Midlands RSL Sub Branch president Geoff Leitch paid tribute to longtime committee man Charlie Johnson, a Vietnam War veteran who passed away on December 21 last year.
Charlie, who was born in Western Australia but settled in Longford, served on the committee from approximately 2007 until his death last year aged 74.
Mr Leitch said his mate Charlie’s passing was a sad blow and he would be sorely missed by his fellow veterans and all who knew and loved him.
Mr Leitch told attendees that Anzac Day was not to “glorify” war but to honour those who served with distinction.
He noted the scars veterans took him with them.
“Wounds suffered in combat are not only physical, they can be deeper and more insidious,” Mr Leitch said.
“They lived with the dark and ceaseless thought that this day could be their last.”
Charlie Johnson was one who came home with those invisible wounds - he turned to alcohol to quell his trauma, son Cameron told the Mercury.
Later in the service, Cressy High School student Lucas Ainslie told the crowd that the bravery shown by our servicemen and women “is beyond our comprehension”.
LATROBE: The impact wars have had on small Tasmanian communities — where multiple members of the same family served, and died, overseas — has been bought home by the guest speaker at Latrobe’s Anzac Day ceremony.
Rear Admiral Brett Wolski, the head of the Afghanistan Inquiry Response Task Force, told the large crowd WWI, in particular, was tough on small country towns like Latrobe.
“There are 46 men from Latrobe on the roll of honour at the Australian War Memorial and most died in France, Belgium, Gallipoli and in the Middle East,” Rear Admiral Wolski said.
“Borthers like John and William Gower who were both killed on the Western Front and Alfred and Rob Saunders who died nine days apart in Belgium.”
Rear Admiral Wolski joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1986 working his way up to commodore in 2013 before ceasing full time service in 2019.
He was subsequently appointed Deputy Chief of Joint Capabilities in October 2020 and in 2021 was appointed as the Head of the Afghanistan Inquiry Response Task Force.
Latrobe Mayor Peter Freshney told the crowd Australians were too often in today’s world drawn into issues that divided the nation.
“Maybe, just maybe this Anzac Day we can reflect on the words of a well-known song ‘We are one but we are many. We are Australians’. The spirit forged by the Anzacs has been reinforced by the generations of ADF personnel who have served since let’s focus on the bond that binds us.”
He urged the crowd to visit the Latrobe Court House museum after the service to read the letters of Latrobe’s Gordon Iles who was killed while serving in France as a reminder of the service given by locals who left their peaceful Tasmanian town and went off to war.
Dawn services
LAUNCESTON: One of the biggest crowds in recent memory rugged up for Launceston’s dawn service, held at the city’s Cenotaph, which was bathed in red light.
Lieutenant Colonel Graeme Barnett, the president of Launceston RSL, hailed the city’s turnout for their Anzac Day dawn service, telling attendees, “It’s very heartening to know so many of you give a stuff.”
“There’s a lot more than we had in previous years,” he said to the crowd of hundreds, if not thousands.
Launceston’s keynote speaker for the dawn service was Army Major General Dave Chalmers, who reminded the city that it was not just the sepia-toned heroes of Gallipoli we remembered on Tuesday.
He described his role commanding Australia’s humanitarian response to the Boxing Day tsunami in southeast Asia and, for those too young to remember, reminded the city it lost one of its own during the mission.
Launceston Flight Lieutenant Lynne Elizabeth Rowbottom was one of mine Australian Defence Force personnel aboard Sea King helicopter N16-100 (call sign Shark O2) when, on April 2, 2005, as the mission was drawing to a close, it crashed on the Indonesian island of Nius.
Lieut Rowbottom, a nursing officer with the Royal Australian Air Force, born in 1963, trained in midwifery at the Launceston General Hospital, moved to Townsville to take up a position at its hospital, then, in 1995-96, fulfilled a “longtime ambition” by joining the RAAF, Maj Gen Chalmers said.
She previously served as part of Operation Citadel, the United Nations peacekeeping mission to East Timor in 2003, for which she was awarded the Australian Service Medal. She was posthumously awarded the Indonesian Medal of Valor.
“She was a wife and mother, loved by her family and friends,” Maj Gen Chalmers said.
“We don’t just remember the men who landed at Gallipoli and fought. We pay tribute to everyone who served and sacrificed.
“Anzac is not merely a date or a remote campaign, but a spirit.”
Scotch Oakburn College student George de Hayr said the more than 100,000 Australian men and women had lost their lives in armed conflict since the Boer War.
“They had a name, had hopes, aspirations, families, loved ones and a future. They were people just like you and me,” Mr de Hayr said.
It was incumbent on those of us who remained to not just remember the names of the famous battles - Long Tan, Passchendaele - but remember the names of those who fell, he said.
A walk for my pa
A Tasmanian man has set off on a punishing 82km walk to honour his Vietnam War veteran grandfather who passed away two years ago from kidney cancer.
Mowbray man Jakeb Morris is raising funds for Cancer Council Tasmania by walking to Latrobe, the hometown of his late grandfather Rodney Sheehan, whose memory he is honouring.
Mr Morris said his grandfather, a lance corporal, battled the illness for approximately 18 months to two years.
He said that Mr Sheehan spoke rarely of his approximately four years in Vietnam. The only exception to the rule was when Mr Sheehan was reminiscing of the camaraderie and mateship he shared with his brothers in arms.
“I met most of his friends he served with,” Mr Morris said.
“He and I got along like a house on fire. He taught me a lot about life.”
Mr Morris, a zoology major at university, said he would travel regularly to Latrobe to see his grandfather.
The pair would play darts, spin yarns and watch the footy – they were bitter Carlton-Richmond rivals.
Mr Morris said he expected his walk to take approximately 20 hours.
He said he has packed food, water, hi-vis clothing, a headlamp and pre-workout pills.
Regarding Anzac Day generally, he said he thanked our servicemen and women “for the roof over my head, the clothes on my back”.
“It’s something I cherish everyday,” he said.
HOBART: Hundreds of Hobart residents have gathered at the Cenotaph in Queens Domain to pay their respects for those who have fallen in conflict for the 2023 Anzac Day Dawn Services across the state.
On the 108th anniversary of the landing of troops in Gallipoli, families of those whose forebears who made the ultimate sacrifice stood silently as Dean Richard Humphrey reflected on the day.
‘Are we peacemaking in this island which has also known conflict. In our own families, in our own lives?’ Mr Humphrey said.
He said Anzac Day continued to be a day of hope for peace in a world that continued to see conflict.
Student Grace Viney in her address thanked the volunteers of the front line in the conflict of Ukraine. She said the Anzac spirit of mateship left a mark on the nation that will never be forgotten.
“Their Anzac spirit still resonates in our society today,” Ms Viney said of the brave Australian and New Zealand troops who had landed on the beach of Gallipoli.
‘Fabric of the state’: Top officer returns home for Anzac Day honour
April 25. 4am: As Tasmanians prepare to pay their respects to the servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice, one of the Army’s top soldiers has returned to where it all began to undertake the “incredible honour” of leading the Anzac Day parade.
General Commander of the First Division, Major General Scott Winter, leapt at the “enormously humbling” opportunity to lead the parade in his home town.
It is the first time Hobart born and bred Major General Winter will take part in the Hobart parade since he was a private soldier in the Army reserves almost 34 years ago.
“It is such a beautiful place to come back to,” Major General Winter said.
“To be able to come back in an official capacity and reflect on the 30-odd years I’ve been in the service – and for me it all started here – and to share some of those stories and maybe inspire some of the young men and women of Tasmania to do the same thing.”
The occasion is made all the more significant by the presence of his mother Maria Koenhein, a former cook who worked at Government House while on a working holiday from the Netherlands in 1968.
Major General Winter and Ms Koenhein were given a tour of Government House by Governor Barbara Baker on April 24.
“It felt very emotional, after all these years, to walk through Government House, my old stomping ground, with my son,” Ms Koenhein said.
Major General Winter said he had always been aware of the reality of conflict – with Ms Koenhein growing up in occupied Netherlands in WWII.
“The reality of conflict was certainly part to the fabric of the family,” Major General Winter said.
“But Tasmania has got such a rich history, so I grew up knowing the stories of the Lewis McGees, winning a Victoria Cross at Passchendaele,
“You grew up with the stories of the amazing guys of the second 12th battalion of the Tobruk, so that is part of the fabric of the state.”
Anzac Day, Major General Winter said, was an opportunity to mark other military milestones as well, including the 50th anniversary since the end of Australia’s commitment to Vietnam, and 80 years since the end of the Korean War.
“It is really important for Tasmanians to be really proud of the fact that when the Anzacs went ashore at Gallipoli, that there were Tasmanians from the 12th battalion that were the first to hit the beach,” he said.
“Tasmania has a very real and visceral past with our military history, and it is something it should take great pride in, that sort of selfless service is something we still need today.”
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