What Is Anzac Day?

KlassicalKat · 04-26-2003, 08:01 PM

Hi, Aussie and Kiwi Cysters!

Hope you don't mind a California gal barging in on your forum!

Just a quick question: My calender lists all kinds of international holidays and I noticed that last Friday (April 25) was listed as Anzac Day (Aus, NZ). I just wondered what this holiday was and how it is celebrated over there?

Thank you!

Kathryn

Sapphire Spirit · 04-26-2003, 09:31 PM

Hey there Kat!!!
Thanks for asking about our ANZAC Day

. ANZAC Day is a day for us to commemorate the lives of the Australian and New Zealander troops lost in battle. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp and is a name traditionally given to our soldiers (diggers) who fought in the 1st and 2nd World Wars. Today we pay tribute to ALL our service men and women who have participated in and lost their lives in battle.
It is an important day on our calendar and starts with a commemorative service at dawn where a bugler plays a sombre tune (the name of which escapes me at the moment). It is a sad tune which is followed by one minutes silence to remember the fallen. These dawn services are held all over the country in capital cities to the smallest of country towns and people of all ages attend as a mark of respect. There are also parades held in some places and past and present soldiers "march by".
For the rest of the day servicemen and women (both survivors of war and those currently serving) gather in their local communities to share stories and REMEMBER their mates. My father always attends the dawn service in our home town and shares a few drinks with the old fellas who served our country. He is very patriotic and has a lot of respect for our diggers. He is also an ex-servicemen himself.

I hope that gives you some idea as to what ANZAC Day is about Kat. Nice to see you here at Aussies & Kiwis........we love having visitors

!

Take Care

Amy

KlassicalKat · 04-26-2003, 11:04 PM

Hi, Amy!

THANK YOU so much for such an excellent response to my question!

It sounds like our American "Memorial Day."

I had my teenage son read your post, too. He loves history...particularly the history of the World Wars. He was very interested in it, too.

Tell your father thank you for serving his country! My father was in the Navy and served in the Phillipines during World War 2. He was a radio man. He still is an amateur radio operator and has been for over 60 years!

Thanks again, Amy and give that sweet baby boy Lachlan a hug!

Kathryn

squidge63 · 04-26-2003, 11:20 PM

I think it is great when a country can be proud of its military past and want to commemorate those men and women who have died for their country. We have remembrance day over here in November, and it is a very sombre occasion held in Whitehall in London, and all around the country.
I look forward to the Remembrance evening on the saturday before the Sunday parade, where you can take pride in your countries armed forces... just thought i would throw in my 2 cents for what its worth..lol.

I have relatives in Queensland, Burleigh heads i think it is, also in Darwin and Bundaberg (not sure if i spelt that correctly..)

Squidge

miranda1977 · 04-27-2003, 12:00 AM

Hi everyone,

Great to see the interest in ANZAC day.

I thought I'd add a few things. I reckon ANZAC Day is probably more important in our calendar than Memorial Day. It is more like Fourth of July and Thanksgiving in terms of how important it is to us. The legend of ANZAC is said to have forged Australia's national identity and the qualities "ANZAC" represents - mateship, courage, sacrifice - are what we see as being the primary elements of the Australian character. Here's some info I found on for you from www.anzacday.org.au:

"The Spirit of ANZAC was suggested by official war historian C.E.W. Bean to have 'stood, and still stands, for reckless valour in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance that will never own defeat.' The Spirit was epitomised in the deeds of Simpson with his donkey at Gallipoli - comradeship, courage and sacrifice: others before self. It also encompasses the laughter, the pride and the love of life that is in every Australian. To really understand this Spirit one must delve back into our country's past.

Australia is a huge land. In the early days, settlements were scarce and far apart yet pioneers built our society's foundations in these fragmented tiny communities. The sun and the open land, the independence and the freedom of living under these conditions was a flame in the blood of our pioneers, a flame that burns whenever men are free, wherever there is a spirit which is willing to help those in need. If there were rumours of trouble, immediately someone would saddle a horse and ride off to see if they could help. Though on a comparatively smaller scale, our New Zealand neighbours in this antipodean part of the British Empire also emerged with a very similar culture.

Conflicts were not unknown to this part of the world. The Eureka Stockade troubles of 1854 in Victoria, the shearers' strike of 1890 in Queensland and the subsequent eastern seaboard maritime strikes were but a few home grown examples. New Zealand's Maori wars in the early 1860s saw volunteers from the separate colonies of Australia assisting their Kiwi mates to establish independence in another developing country. Again in 1885 the colonies displayed passionate outrage and a willingness to avenge the brutal death of Britain's General Gordon at Khartoum, despite only a New South Wales contingent being accepted for service. And when the Boer War erupted in South Africa, volunteer units from the colonies competed for a place beside the Mother Country's warriors.

Thus, although the disparate colonies of our great land did not federate till 1901, Australians and New Zealanders had been united since the beginnings of their countries and this unity, this love of life had formed the basis of the Spirit of ANZAC. 'The Mother Country's in a spot of bother again,' was a typical observation when the Great War began in 1914. 'Might as well help her get this sorted out,' was the accustomed response to someone in need. For a century the antipodean survivors had been helping overcome Nature's curses and supporting each other's causes. Now they were equally ready again to assist Britain, this time to overcome German militarism. This was the Spirit which imbued the volunteers as they dashed off with seemingly gay abandon to the First World War and what was to become the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

These bold, laughing soldiers were a new, unknown factor of a very old Empire. 'They seemed to be of one race, for all of them had something the same bearing, and something the same look of humorous, swift decision' described Poet Laureate John Masefield. But if the British thought they 'took a bit of getting used to', the enemy never got used to them. These 'colonials' fought as they lived - bravely, openly, independently, and without fear. They proved that their young countries could produce men equal to any in the world, perhaps the greatest fighting force this world has known - the ANZACs.

On 25 April 1915 a new world was born. A new side of man's character was revealed. The Spirit of ANZAC was kindled. It flared with a previously unknown, almost superhuman strength. There was a determination, a zest, a drive which swept up from the beaches on Gallipoli Peninsula as the ANZACs thrust forward with their torch of freedom. As they fell, they threw those following the torch so their quest would maintain its momentum. That Torch of Freedom has continually been thrown from falling hands, has kindled in the catchers' souls a zeal and desire for both our individual liberty and our countries' liberty. That desire has been handed down with the memory and burns as brightly as the flame which first kindled it.

But the Spirit of ANZAC is not confined to the battlefield. It lives in the schools, on the sports fields, in fact all over these great countries of Australia and New Zealand. The sun invades our bodies and makes us 'mad'; mad for freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to live and think as you will. The Spirit of ANZAC is not something we can see but a powerful driving sensation that can only be felt. It is a feeling that burns in the heart of every Australian and New Zealand countryman. A warm, tender, fiery, even melancholy ideal that nurtures intense patriotism in the innermost soul of every body. Many foundation ANZACs died, but their glorious challenge to catch the thrown torch shouts loud and strong to all. Their goal was freedom for the land they loved.

The Spirit of ANZAC is invincible. It is the flame that burns forevermore in the heart of every true Australian and New Zealander. Today we stand safe and free, clothed with all the privileges and rights of citizens in these great free countries. And all these things - liberty, security, opportunity, the privileges of citizenship - we owe to those men who fought, endured, suffered, and died for us and for their country. Their deeds and their sacrifices gave us the invincible, the intangible, the Spirit of ANZAC."

ANZAC Day is a time to celebrate our Australian-ness and to remember the men and women who died to protect our freedom. The proud thing for our country is that the crowds attending ANZAC Day ceremonies are increasing every year (particularly because of the attendance of young people). Attending a dawn service at Gallipoli is a right of passage for young Aussies. Thousands of young Australians stand of the beaches of Gallipoli each Anzac Day to pay tribute. Lest we forget.

Miranda

miranda1977 · 04-27-2003, 12:17 AM

Here's the speech our Treasurer (like our deputy prime minister) gave at the Dawn Service in Gallipoli this year:

"As we stand here, with the light about to break, we wonder what they must have felt as they looked out from their landing ships and thought about what lay before them.

They were volunteers. They were young. They were half a world away from their homes. And the balance of their lives lay before them.

They would have been anxious, nervous, frightened yet exhilarated. Many had joined up out of a sense of adventure. And now the landing was about to begin. How would it go for them? And how would it go for the men of the ANZAC Corps?

The first shots would have shattered any illusions they had about war.

One of the men who carried the wounded described it as: "one of the roughest places on God's earth". Their foe controlled the heights. They soon became acquainted with suffering and death. There was nothing glorious about it. It was awful and it was wretched.

The ANZACs would never command the heights which were the key to controlling the Peninsula. They met a well organised and brilliantly commanded defence. They dug in against impossible odds and held it. When they successfully withdrew, over 8,000 had lost their lives. They were young. They had everything to live for but they died in the service of their country and their fellow citizens.

Before that day in April 1915 few Australians would have known the name Gallipoli. But even now, 88 years later, it is a name we cannot forget.

What the men could not have known that fateful day in 1915 was how their deeds would impress themselves on the identity of a nation.

The Argus newspaper in December 1915 quoted Major General James McCay declaring: "…the first sacred spot in the history of Australia was the ANZAC beach and the heights above it."

And so we come to this sacred spot to pay homage. We come to pay homage to them - the original ANZACs - and to pay homage to the nation and its ideals which they helped to create.

Until ANZAC the story of Australia had been the story of settlement, of colony and federation. Federation provided the constitutional basis for a nation. But ANZAC gave that nation a consciousness of itself - the knowledge that Australians were distinct and different, and now proud:- with their own feats of courage and their own history on the international stage.

These are the men of ANZAC, sons, brothers, husbands, mates who had a common purpose, who had courage in the face of extremity, who suffered with a generous acceptance, who had a belief in their cause but a sense of proportion. Despite the privation, and despite the carnage, they came to honour and respect their foe. And their foe honoured and respected them. Turkey too found a new sense of nationhood under a new national leader who fought here at Gallipoli.

ANZACs would go on to much greater military success in the 1914-18 War in Palestine and the fields of France. Our servicemen and women would later distinguish themselves in the Pacific and Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts closer to home. Even today young Australian men and women are serving in theatres of war. Let us remember them.

But we keep coming back to this place. This is the place that will live forever in the mind and the soul of every Australian.

Today there are many young Australians here. Like their great grandfathers and great great grandfathers they have travelled half a world away from their homes to be here today out of love of their country. They want to pay homage and to take something of the ideals that were established here that day in 1915. They want the ideals of ANZAC to inspire and nourish them again. And they want the legacy never to be forgotten.

For Australians this is a sacred place. As long as there are Australians this place and what happened here will not be forgotten."

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miranda1977 · 04-27-2003, 12:21 AM

AND wait there's more!

Here's the very Australian recipe for ANZAC biscuits (probably not so good on the diet front, but yummy):

ANZAC Biscuits
ANZAC stands for ‘Australian and New Zealand Army Corps’. It is not quite clear, whether the first ANZAC biscuits were baked in WW1 or WW2.

1 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
¾ cup desiccated coconut
¾ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
120g (4¼ oz) butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup

Combine flour, oats, coconut, sugar and baking powder. Melt butter and add golden syrup. Stir over low heat until syrup has melted. Add butter mixture to dry ingredients, mixing until smooth.
Roll mixture into small balls. Place on greased baking tray and flatten slightly. Bake in preheated oven at 150°C (300°F) for about 15 minutes.
Makes 35.

Tas · 04-27-2003, 01:21 AM

I've just finished reading Bryce Courtenay's Solomon's Song. It gives an amazing, very graphic, account of the Gallipoli landing.

Tas · 04-27-2003, 01:29 AM

I used to live in Canberra and I was in a Red Cross unit that served soup at the dawn service and morning tea for the marchers after the parade. After having my first child, I decided against getting up at 3.30 to be out there by 4.00 so we could be set up in time. Until then, they had used bought, mixed biscuits for the morning tea, so I started making hundreds of ANZAC biscuits as my contribution to the effort. I made 24 dozen each year until I moved back to Tassie about 8 years later. The diggers thought it was wonderful.

KlassicalKat · 04-27-2003, 03:57 AM

Wow! I just checked back here before going to bed (it's almost 11 PM here in California as I write this) and saw all of these new posts!

squidge...that was interesting about Rememberance Day in the UK. I had heard of it, but didn't know when it was held.

Miranda I am going to bed, now, but plan on reading every word of your posts (I promise!) and my historian son will want to, too! and check out that website. The biscuits sound good, too. I am going to try to make some. We don't have golden syrup here, but perhaps I can use corn syrup. . . or maybe they are the same thing?

Tas! That was sure a lot of biscuits to bake! Bless you for doing that for the diggers! I am going to see if I can find that book by Bryce Courtenay.

Thanks, everyone for the great information!

Kathryn

Tas · 04-27-2003, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amy75
... starts with a commemorative service at dawn where a bugler plays a sombre tune (the name of which escapes me at the moment). It is a sad tune which is followed by one minutes silence to remember the fallen..

That'd be The Last Post. Then after the minute's silence they play Reveille

Quote:

Originally posted by KlassicalKat
... The biscuits sound good, too. I am going to try to make some. We don't have golden syrup here, but perhaps I can use corn syrup. . . or maybe they are the same thing?...

Nope, corn syrup is definitely not the same thing. I think treacle would be the best alternative.