COMRADES ALL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 135, 10 June 1938, Page 11

COMRADES ALL.

ANZACS TOGETHER.

MEN OF GALLIPOLI.

BIRTH OF THE UAWN PARADE

I Participants in the military adventure J from which the name Anzae sprang in i the year 1915 to symbolise the fusion of the manhood of Australia and New | , Zealand. 150 members of the Auckland I Gallipoli Association attended the association's fourth annual reunion at the Town Hall concert chamber last night ] to fraternise and renew comradeships formed on the Peninsula 23 years ago. Units from horse, foot and artillery the I Dominion over, as well as from the Navy I and the 29th Division, and from the A.1.F., answered the roll call. Once again they heard "Last Post" and "Reveille" sounded as, with lights lowered, they paid their silent tribute to fallen comrades before carrying on with the orders of the day. Touching with tact on organisation matters, the president. Mr. E. Webberley, mentioned that Cll names were on the roll, not all financial, and that of the badgw adopted this year 220 had been issued. He reminded "Diggers" that there must be many more qualified men whom the shilling-a-year membership fee should not keep out of their ranks, adding that the Gallipoli Association and the R.S.A. were in perfect harmony and co-operation on every point affecting the Gallipoli veterans. On a show of hands lie accepted the meeting's decision, by no means unanimous, that the reunion should be held in future in Anzae week in preference to Grand National week in Auckland. A brief visit by Sir Ernest Davis and Sir George Richardson was acclaimed with enthusiasm and with musical honours, eliciting from the former an assurance that the citizens of Auckland who remembered the Gallipoli campaign would never lose their regard for and sincere gratitude to the men who served on Gallipoli.

Unparalleled Hospitality.

Australia's unparalleled hospitality to the visiting New Zealand R.S.A. contingent at the recent centenary in Sydney was the theme of Mr. H. M. Clark when, in the course of the short toast list. he proposed "The Auseies." He vividly narrated the fashion in which every section of the community, including the police, gave them the freedom of the whole country in Anzac week. Never before had he seen so impressive a r.ight as that of row after row of Australian soldiers who had succumbed to the local ale (which seemed harmless to the New Zealanders), laid out gently hy the police on the floor of a great hall, and next morning provided by the police with a bottle of ale before being led off to breakfast. Yet even this was not so remarkably impressive to him as was Australia's! dawn parade, when 5000 6oldiers and I f>o.ooo citizens took part in the ceremony at the break of day. In Australia | they regarded the dawn parade as of special significance, symbolising the beginning of a new nation by the fusion of Australia and New Zealand in the Anzacs. The Australians had accepted enthusiastically the R.S.A. invitation to i send their war veterans to New Zealand for the centenary in 1940, and he felt sure the Oallipoli Association here would welcome the chance to try in soma measure return the Australian hos- !. pitality of which he had spoken. | "We Will Remember." Mr. K. P. Titchener, president of the .Auckland branch, Australian Imperial Forces Returned Soldiers' Association, in acknowledging the toast, stated that so great was the response in Australia ;to the invitation to visit New Zealand in 1940 that the steamship services • would be set a problem to cope with .the transport and that sections of th.i lA.T.K. would have to be distributed throughout the various centres of the Dominion. Already a great dawn parade for Anzac Day in Xcw Zealand was in I process of organisation, and invitations • had gone out to leading administrative land local body officials throughout the 'country. He deal* with the special significance attached by Australians to the .dawn parade, of which the great distinctive feature was a grand and solemn ; dedication of the day by all Anzac—New 'Zealanders as well "as" Australians—to : their fallen comrades. j At his request Mr. N. H. Chapman ! recited the words of dedication composed ] for the occasion beginning: "At this hour upon this day Anzac received its baptism 'of fire, and became one of the immort-il [ names of history. We who are gathered here think of the comrades Who went . j out with us to the battlefields of the . I Great War, but did not return. . . ." J And»the assembled company intoned ■ at the conclusion of th* dedication: "We i will remember." I!