Lanai Scarr and staff writers News Limited Network
April 25, 2013 6:08AM
HUGE crowds have gathered in the darkness to pay their respects to the past and present Australian service men and women.
Please join us in honouring our Anzacs, past and present. See our national Dawn Service LIVE coverage above.
In Sydney, Thousands of people lined Martin Place wrapped up in hats and scarfs with warm beverages in hand as preparations for the service got under way.
Special guests NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell and retired Australian Army general Peter Cosgrove are expected to arrive at the service soon.
Parts of George, Pitt, Castlereagh and King streets have closed for the Anzac Day parade.
In Brisbane, the mood in Anzac Square in Brisbane’s inner city is quiet and reflective as flags are lowered at half-mast.
Bundled in jumpers, spectators have congregated on Adelaide St near the Anzac Shrine of Remembrance for the 4.28am service - the precise time the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli almost a century ago.
Despite the chilly temperature, up to 18,000 people filled ANZAC Square in Brisbane's inner city.
All but about 100 ignored the invitation to beat the crowd and watch the event live on screens in King George Square.
In her address, the Governor of Queensland Penelope Wensley reminded the crowd that Anzac Day was, in the midst of sorrow, to "celebrate the Anzac spirit" 98 years after the legend was born on the shores of Gallipoli.
In Melbourne, a cool morning has greeted thousands of people at the Shrine of Remembrance.
Organisers are expecting a crowd of about 40,000 people.
Commemorations started at 5.45am and will be followed by a wreath laying service and march.
Shrine of Remembrance CEO Denis Baguley says it will be a very traditional service, reflecting the commemeration of Australian service men and women.
''It is a simple service, but one that is very poignant,'' he said.
He said everyone from young children to veterans would be attending the service.
In Canberra, thousands have remembered our diggers past and present at a Dawn Service at the Australian War Memorial.
As the war in Afghanistan comes to a close, thousands braved the Canberra cold to pay respect to Australia's brave soldiers.
Initial estimates are that there were 30,000 people at the ceremony this morning.
Prior to the official ceremony Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith read out emotive accounts of Australian service in Afghanistan.
Corporal Roberts-Smith paused and looked emotional as he read the words of the son of his friend killed in Afghanistan, Sergeant Matthew Locke.
"I truly believe he has given me the gift of the Anzac spirit," he said. Corporal Roberts-Smith spoke of a young soldier whose wife gave birth while he was in Afghanistan.
The soldier's wife cried as she told her husband what the baby boy looked like.
"Just like you she says, but with red hair," Corporal Roberts-Smith read.
Another soldier recalled killing on the battlefield.
"I felt so guilty and I still do."
From midnight images of Australian servicemen and women, accompanied by the names of iconic battlefields from over a century of conflicts, were projected onto the Memorial building.
Excerpts from letters and diaries of Australians who experienced firsthand war were also read out from 4.30am.
A national ceremony will be held in Canberra from 10.15am.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will be in attendance.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard will attend a service in Darwin.
Ms Gillard was in Townsville in Queensland for the Dawn Service. Mr Abbott was in Melbourne.
Corporal Roberts-Smith will march in the Canberra national ceremony later today with the children of his colleagues killed in Afghanistan Sergeant Matthew Locke MG and Sergeant Blaine Diddams.
Australia plans to have the majority of troops out of Afghanistan by December.
Currently around 1600 Australian servicemen and women are in the war -torn nation.
Anzac Day in NSW: Go to The Telegraph
Corporal Roberts-Smith is the most public face of a call for younger veterans not only to attend dawn services but to march in parades.
Very few veterans of recent conflicts like East Timor, the Solomons, Iraq and Afghanistan were taking part in parades, said War Memorial director Brendan Nelson.
"We want you to march," he said.
In Melbourne, Victorian RSL chief Michael Annett said the dawn service continued to attract young people without any direct ancestral links to veterans, swelling the expected crowd to 45,000.
"As the dawn begins to break and you start to see the faces in the crowd, the vast majority of those people are families," he said. "There's a very special reverence for the veterans, whose numbers are dwindling."
AFL teams Essendon and Collingwood will clash at the MCG in the afternoon in their traditional Anzac Day clash, then the Melbourne Storm play the New Zealand Warriors in the NRL at nearby AAMI Park in the evening.
Anzac Day in Victoria: Go to The Herald Sun
In Brisbane, 95-year-old Neil Russell, a veteran of the Middle East and the Pacific, will be just one of many living stories in the Queensland capital's march.
As a 25-year-old first lieutenant, he helped stop the Japanese from taking Port Moresby in the 1942 Battle of Milne Bay.
He says when the order came to fix bayonets and charge, his company "stormed the enemy stronghold".
"And the Japs shot off like a Bondi tram," he said.
Anzac Day in Queensland: Go to The Courier Mail
The WA government, meanwhile, says work to prepare the historic West Australian coastal city of Albany for next year's Anzac commemorations will be completed on time.
The site where thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops departed for Egypt and then Gallipoli in Turkey in 1914 needs to be finished by November 1 next year, when there will be a re-enactment of the departure of ships from King George Sound.
New research in South Australia will try to determine what was so special about the Australian diggers who fought in World War I.
University of Adelaide PhD student Lachlan Coleman is comparing the resources available to Australian soldiers to those provided to their British comrades during the Hundred Days Campaign in northern France which paved the way for victory against the Germans.
War historian Robin Prior said little work had been done to understand why the Australian soldiers were so successful.
Anzac Day in SA: Go to AdelaideNow
A sword belonging to one of Australia's most inspiring battlefield commanders will be the centrepiece of the Anzac Day march in Perth.
Brigadier Arnold Potts, who commanded the brigade that held back the Japanese advance during bitter fighting on the Kokoda Trail in World War II, wore the sword when he received a Military Cross decoration from King George V at Buckingham Palace in 1916 for serving on the Western Front.
The sword will be held by his successor Lieutenant Colonel Rhogan Aitken, commanding officer of the Royal Western Australia Regiment's 16th Battalion, as he leads his troops through the city's streets.
Anzac Day in WA: Go to PerthNow
In Darwin, US Marines and Australian veterans are looking forward to marching alongside each other.
About 200 US Marines are stationed in Darwin for the dry season for training, and two platoons of Americans, about 90 people, are set to take part in Anzac Day proceedings on Thursday.
Anzac Day in the NT: Go to The NT News
And in Tasmania, the bushfire-ravaged Tasmanian town of Dunalley will hold its first ever dawn service this Anzac Day.
The town's RSL club was among more than 60 buildings razed when last summer's fires swept the oyster-growing community, 60km southeast of Hobart.
Anzac Day in Tasmania: Go to The Mercury
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/australia-celebrates-and-remembers-on-anzac-day-2013/story-fncynjr2-1226629003721
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
25042013
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
No comments:
Post a Comment