At dawn on April 25th, 1915, the Royal Navy landed the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (“ANZAC”) on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. The navy miscalculated drift currents and botched the job; the soldiers were dropped off at the wrong place, a narrow beach that quickly became known as “ANZAC Cove”.
Ever since the war’s end, April 25th is ANZAC Day, a day of remembrance to Australians and New Zealanders. Besides being a public holiday in those nations, there are ceremonies held in the national capitols, the major cities and at military installations. However, the observance at the actual site of the landing is a special event, attended by about 10,000 VIP’s and others who got their tickets in a lottery. Later in the day there are also national ceremonies on the peninsula at Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair. The Turkish government and military join in all of these.
Because of the difference in time, Thursday’s dawn ceremony at Anzac Cove will happen at around 9:00 PM tonight for those living in Kansas. The Australian Broadcasting Co. will live stream the event online, and the broadcast will be available on YouTube at a subsequent date. If you’re impatient you can watch last year’s event here. If you’ve got the time this is a two-fer: after ANZAC Cove you can see the Australian ceremony at Villers Bretennoux in France.
James Patton
James (“Jim”) Patton BS BA MPA is a retired state official from Shawnee, Kansas and a frequent contributor to several WW1 e-publications, including "Roads to the Great War," "St. Mihiel Tripwire," "Over the Top" and "Medicine in the First World War." He has spent many hours walking the WW1 battlefields, and is also an authority on British regiments and a collector of their badges. An Army Engineer during the Vietnam War, he does work for the US World War 1 Centennial Commission and is affiliated with the WW1 Historical Association, the Western Front Association, the Salonika Campaign Society and the Gallipoli Association.
Leave a Reply