Anzac Day dawn service highlights contribution of women
About 38,000 people have braved a chilly, but clear Canberra morning to mark 103 years since troops from Australia and New Zealand landed at Gallipoli during World War I.
Retired Colonel Susan Neuhaus delivered the dawn service address at the Australian War Memorial, highlighting the contribution of women to the armed forces by remembering 22 nurses who were ordered into the sea and executed by Japanese troops during World War I.
"When their ship, the Vyner Brooke, was torpedoed in the Banka Strait, they swam through the night to the shore," Colonel Neuhaus said.
"There, on Monday, the 16th of February 1942, shortly after 10am, they were lined up along the beach, still in their uniforms, a red cross emblazoned into their left sleeve and at bayonet point they were ordered into the sea.
"They were under no illusion as to their fate.
"In those last moments before the machine guns opened fire, Matron Irene Drummond turned to her nurses with words of comfort and of courage and her words speak for a nation: 'Chins up, girls. I'm proud of you, and I love you all'."
It was 7 degrees as Colonel Neuhaus became the first woman to address a Canberra dawn service, saying that while the Gallipoli landings are fading further into the past, the significance of the sacrifice made by those veterans, and all who have followed them, will never diminish.
"Like most Australians today, I have no faded photographs of men or women in uniform on my mantelpiece and don't know of any family members who served on the beaches of Gallipoli, on the muddy fields of the Somme or indeed the jungles of south-east Asia," she said.
"And yet, like all of us, I benefit from what they have done."
Pre-service ceremonies began at 4.30am on Wednesday, with representatives of each of Australia's armed services reading excerpts from the letters and diaries by war veterans.
Among the first to arrive was Canberra man Neil Anstey, who served for more than 40 years in the Australian Army.
Mr Anstey, whose service included tours in East Timor and Sinai, said Anzac Day was always an emotional occasion.
"It means a lot because we're remembering those who have gone before us," he said.
"It's great to see more young kids getting involved and wanting to know what it's all about."
Mr Anstey will be part of the lead contingent in the march down Anzac Parade later on Wednesday morning, along with about 800 others representing the army apprentices.
Another of those is Geoff Wilson, who enlisted as an army apprentice in 1977 and went on to become a member of the Royal Military College Band.
He travelled from Wagga Wagga for the dawn service, and to attend an army apprentices reunion that marks 70 years since the first school for apprentices opened.
"We owe the guys before us a lot, in terms of our lifestyle in Australia," Mr Wilson said.
"My career path didn't take me [to conflict zones], but you get to know all these guys who went overseas, and there's a lot of mateship there."
The 2018 crowd matched that of last year, when rain hit the dawn service, and again fell well short of the almost 130,000 who attended to mark the centenary of Anzac Day in 2015.
Australian War Memorial director Dr Brendan Nelson said Anzac Day had endured through "existential questions" about its relevance in the past, and would always have a place in Australia no matter how many people attended the dawn service.
"What's much more important than physical attendance at any of these ceremonies is what is appearing in people's hearts, and the extent to which people are prepared to stop, reflect and think about what Anzac Day is and what it means," he said.
"Anzac Day asks of every one of us, 'What does it mean to be Australian?' and it also answers it. In the end, what we need most is one another, and whatever we do with our lives, we need to do something that is in service of other Australians and other human beings."