Anzac Day
For The Fallen
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
The Last Post is played.
Last Post
Come home! Come home! The last post is sounding
for you to hear. All good soldiers know very well there
is nothing to fear while they do what is right, and forget
all the worries they have met in their duties through the
year. A soldier cannot always be great, but he can be a
gentleman and he can be a right good pal to his comrades in
his squad. So all you soldiers listen to this – Deal fair by all
and you’ll never be amiss.
Be Brave! Be Just! Be Honest and True Men!
A minute's silence. It is a time for reflection – to think about all the New Zealanders who have fought and died in all wars, and to remember their courage and sacrifice.
Reveille is played.
Reveille
Rev-eil-lee! Rev-eil-lee is sounding
The bugle calls you from your sleep; it is the break of day.
You've got to do your duty or you will get no pay.
Come, wake yourself, rouse yourself out of your sleep
And throw off the blankets and take a good peek at all
The bright signs of the break of day, so get up and do not delay.
Get Up!
Or-der-ly officer is on his round!
And if you're still a-bed he will send you to the guard
And then you'll get a drill and that will be a bitter pill:
So be up when he comes, be up when he comes,
Like a soldier at his post, a soldier at his post, all ser-ene.
Long known as the corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas) because it flourishes as a weed in grain fields, the Flanders poppy as it is now usually called, grew profusely in the trenches and craters of the war zone. Artillery shells and shrapnel stirred up the earth and exposed the seeds to the light they needed to germinate.This same poppy also flowers in Turkey in early spring - as it did in April 1915 when the ANZACs landed at Gallipoli.
In Flanders’ fields
In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead, short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders’ fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe,
To you from failing hands we throw
The Torch: be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders’ fields.
-- Colonel John McCrae
We Shall Keep the Faith
Oh! You who sleep in Flanders’ fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew,
We caught the torch you threw,
And holding high we kept
The faith with those who died.
We cherish too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led.
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders’ fields.
And now the torch and poppy red
Wear in honour of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught
We’ve learned the lesson that ye taught
In Flanders’ fields.
-- Moira Michael
Gallipoli
The Main Body, as it was known, of 8,417 men sailed from Wellington on October 16 1914. The largest single body of men ever to leave the country, it reached Alexandria in Egypt on November 3. Here they settled into a routine of training and preparation. They saw their first action on 3 February 1915 when they repulsed a Turkish incursion across the Suez Canal. Private William Ham from the Canterbury Infantry Regiment died of his wounds the next day - New Zealand's first casualty in action. On 25 April 1915, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula of Turkey. They were to remain there for 8 months until the successful evacuation operation completed by 20 December 1915.The major battles of the Gallipoli campaign are as follows:
May 6-8 Second battle of Krithia
Aug 6-21 Battle of Suvla
(The struggle for Chunk Bair occurred on 7-8 August during the Battle of Suvla and was mainly carried out by the Wellington Battalion.)
The ANZACs were evacuated from Gallipoli by December 20. 8,556 New Zealand troops served on Gallipoli. 2,721 died and 4,752 were wounded.
A tribute to the memory of the ANZACS by M. Kemal Atatürk in 1934 (Founder of the Turkish Republic in 1923)
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives; You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehemets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are at peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
