ANZAC Day
Robin Ford, April 2019
Throughout Australia, many will attend dawn services on ANZAC day – 25 April – to reflect on sacrifices made in war.
Does it seem strange to include ANZAC Day in postings about the movable feast that is Easter? 25 April is the latest possible date for Easter Sunday (as calculated for Australian public holidays). The solemnity of ANZAC Day, with its theme of sacrifice, re-awakens the mood of Good Friday. To me, it is an integral part of Lent-Easter.
It all began in 1915 with a landing at Gallipoli, just 14 years and 114 days after the Australian colonies Federated.
All volunteers, the ANZACs (members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) were landed in the wrong place. The preparatory gun barrage was not properly scheduled. The defending Turks held the high ground and had time to prepare.
The landing achieved nothing.
By one account 8 709 Australian ANZACs died at Gallipoli, out of an Allied total of 50 133. The total for the defending Turks was given as 86 692.
Australians are still drawn to Gallipoli. Are they as affected by the inscriptions on the gravestones as British author Geoffrey Moorhouse, who writes:
….Here is the grave of Trooper E. W. Lowndes, of the 3rd Australian Light Horse, who was thirty when he was killed on May 23. “Well Done Ted”” it says on his stone. Here is Private W. Turton, 9th Battalion Australian Light Infantry, twenty-four years old, died on May 20: “The Best Of Lads None Better May He Rest In Peace. Here is Private J. J. Carroll,6th Battalion Australian Infantry, died on August 7 when he was twenty-five: “My Jim Gave His Life For Freedom. Loved And Remembered By His Dad.”
Everywhere you look in the Australian cemeteries are the marks made by broken-hearted people reaching out from ten thousand miles away.
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