For Australians such as me, the key date for commemorating those who served and fell the nation in time of war is 25 April, Anzac Day, but Remembrance Day also has deep significance.
At the time of World War I, Australia had a population of just five million of whom 300,000 men and women volunteered to serve.
Their casualties were enormous in proportion to the nation’s population: 60,000 Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen died and 156,000 were wounded or taken prisoner.
From being a commemoration of their sacrifice, Remembrance Day has grown to include those who served and fell in war and in peace, before and after the “War to End All Wars”.
Too many members of my family and the Other Half’s served in the Australian, British, New Zealand and Canadian armies to name them all here, but we will remember them today.
We will also especially remember those members of our families who died on active service. Their sacrifice has not been forgotten.
- T. M. Barron, 3 January 1942, Egypt
- G. A. Boyd, 13 February 1941, Libya
- J. L. Cantwell, 15 April 1918, France
- M. H. Cantwell, 30 September 1918, France
- R. M. Cantwell, 4 February 1942, Rabaul
- N. J. Criddle, 27 July 1942, Egypt
- W. K. Criddle, 29 September 1942, Ceylon
- D. Dalgleish, 25 September 1915, France
- J. T. Dalgleish, 25 September 1944, United Kingdom
- W. K. Gertzel, 13 May 1944, Belgium
- A. L. Hodder, 18 September 1917, Belgium
- R. J. Inch, 13 June 1902, South Africa
- W. D. McKillop, 15 Setpember 1942, Singapore
- J. J. Midgley, 16 March 1945, Borneo
- F. M. Moore, 1 October 1916, France
- D. J. Paterson, 23 February 1945, Germany
- T. M. Spice, 30 May 1916, France
- C. Ward, 9 May 1915, France
We shall also remember those who serve today and put their lives on the line, men and women like those of the 1st Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment who returned from Afghanistan recently, having suffered 11 per cent casualties.
They and their fellows in the British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian armed forces are not forgotten here.
The Last to Leave
The guns were silent, and the silent hills
had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, “What of these?’ and “What of these?
These long forgotten dead with sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories
Their only mourners are the moaning waves,
Their only minstrels are the singing trees
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfullyI watched the place where they had scaled the height,
The height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night
I sat there long, and listened - all things listened too
I heard the epics of a thousand trees,
A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise:
The dead would be remembered evermore-
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.
Leon Gellert, 1892-1977
Lest we forget.
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