Thousands attend Anzac ceremonies

By CLIO FRANCIS - Stuff.co.nz

Tens of thousands of New Zealanders, young and old, attended Anzac Day dawn services throughout the country today to remember fallen ancestors and to honour veterans who had returned.

People attending the ceremonies were asked to remember both those who landed at Gallipoli, Turkey on April 25, 1915, and those who had fought for New Zealand in wars right from the Boer War in South Africa in 1899 through to the Afghanistan conflict today.

An estimated 10,000 were at services in Christchurch and Wellington, and similar if not greater numbers of people attended the main Auckland ceremony.

The numbers attending Anzac Day services have been on the rise since the 1980s and they have increasingly been younger audiences.

RSA chief executive Stephen Clarke said those attending were not just commemorating the loss of New Zealanders in overseas wars but celebrating the living war veterans and what it meant to be a New Zealander

"It's great for our World War 2 RSA members that in the autumn years of their lives they get this recognition from the New Zealand public," Dr Clarke said.

"I always think the litmus test is that they're applauded on and off the Anzac Day parades. In decades gone by it was like a funeral procession, so we stuck our hands in our pockets and it was very solemn.

"This moves it slightly closer to the Australian observance, which has always been a little bit more celebratory."

Dr Clarke said much of the resurgence had been due to younger people who had returned after having their overseas experience, an experience much different from those who went to war in earlier years.

"Of course, when they're overseas they've got the opportunity to visit places like Gallipoli or the Western Front," he said.

"Over the last 30 years the whole OE generation have had the opportunity to see those spots that have been such a central part of our history, and when they come back, often what they're doing is remembering the time that they're actually at that site.

"It's like they're new Anzacs and creating their own remembrance."

Around ten thousand people battled howling wind and patchy rain to observe a solemn ANZAC service in Auckland this morning.

By 5.30 am the green fields of the Auckland Domain had been turned into a mass car-park to accommodate all those who had gathered to mark the landing of Anzac troops in Gallipoli 94 years ago.

Small children wrapped in woolen hats and raincoats sat on their parents' shoulders as in the darkness of the new day the memorial service was conducted.

Around 150 veterans marched onto the Cenotaph at 6am to the rousing applause of the assembled crowd.

Peter Jonas told Stuff.co.nz he comes every year.

"I bring the kids and I try to teach them about what this all means.

"It's an important day for our country, we must remember all those men and woman who have paid such heavy dues for New Zealand.

His seven-year-old daughter Kate, wearing a lady bug raincoat, said she was excited about singing the hymns.

"I like the anthem best."

An emotional John Banks read passages from a letter written by a young solider serving in Gallipoli.

The letter, scribed amidst the bloody terror of Gallipoli, would be his last, the Auckland mayor said.

He was killed by enemy fire later that day. .

As the haunting sounds of the "Last Post" rang through the silenced crowd, young defence force personnel slowly lowered the New Zealand flags.

Slowly the bright lights were lowered and the big screen television faded to black.

A minutes silence was observed, the blustery wind the only sound piercing the night sky.

Later, remembrance wreaths were laid by Minister of Defence Wayne Mapp, Labour Party leader Phil Goff and Mr Banks

The only blip in the proceedings came at the end. A scheduled fly-over by an airforce Hercules had to be cancelled.

It was having mechanical repairs after carrying two crocodiles from Australia, "two more Anzacs in New Zealand" as a Returned Services Association speaker described them, to the mirth of the crowd.

In Hamilton, veterans marched across the bridge to Memorial Park where about 3000 attended the service beside the floodlit Cenotaph.

A contingent of World War 2 veterans led the dawn parade into Cathedral Square in Christchurch, where an estimated 10,000 people packed the square for the service led by Canterbury Malayan Veterans' Association president Paul Tau.

A similar number attended the dawn service in the capital at which Prime Minister John Key was present.

Mr Key later led a host of New Zealand and foreign dignitaries laying wreaths outside the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the National War Memorial in Wellington.

An estimated crowd of 9000 – well on on last year's 7000 – gathered in mild weather for Dunedin's Anzac Day dawn service at the Cenotaph in Queens Gardens this morning, The Otago Daily Times website reported.

Guest speaker Supt Grant O'Fee, of the New Zealand Police, paid tribute to the young people, including many students, who had made the effort to gather in the early morning darkness.

Their commitment to remembering the war dead was in marked contrast to that shown by his generation on Anzac Days in the past, he said.

In Mt Maunganui, Rev Chris Haines asked New Zealanders to keep their recession hardships in perspective and not look for somebody else to blame.

"The inevitable cycles of less than plenty have much more to do with our common obsession with self-interest than with a particular person or political party," he said.

"We can, individually and as a people if we will, remember the gifts of freedom and peace that was brought to us by so many thousands of young New Zealanders who, on the sharp end of war and terror and death, gave us their second chances."

Events to mark Anzac Day were set to continue throughout out the country this morning, among them the national wreathlaying ceremony at 10.30am in Wellington.

New Zealand troops in the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan were also due to mark Anzac Day, while Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand and cabinet minister Judith Collins were among New Zealanders at Gallipoli.

-with NZPA