ANZAC DAY IN KOREA

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27643, 27 April 1955, Page 14

ANZAC DAY IN KOREA

* PARADE NEAR IMJIN RIVER HOMAGE TO FALLEN OF FOUR WARS • (NJE. Army Information Service) KOREA, April 25. t For the fourth successive year the largest combined observance of Anzac Day was held several thousand miles ,♦ away from either New Zealand or Aus- * tralia. Four or five miles south of the K. Communist positions on the truce line ' in Korea more than 1000 smartly turned-out soldiers paraded and paid homage to the fallen of four wars. They were the officers and men of No. 19 Company R.N.Z.A.S.C. and the Ist Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. The scene of the parade was the battalion's Gallipoli Camp alongside the river Imjin. The gallantry of the orig nal Anzacs was recalled by the presence of one Australian wreathbearer—his father, * Sergeant Percy Hamilton, died of wounds received in an action which

won for him the Victoria Cross. The passing of old enmities was indicated by the presence of Brigadier Mete GurdakuL the commander of the Turkish Brigade. The buglers too provided a link with the Gallipoli campaign for the sth battalion of their regiment—the Dorsets—was one of the units fighting alongside the Anzacs 40 years ago. The men on parade remembered the price paid in two later wars for many lost brothers and friends in . the Middle East and Europe, in the Pacific and Korea. t- "Courage, endurance, the ability to s;and hardships and the ability to ” adapt oneself to changing circumstances in the worst conditions—these are not concrete things but without them we would be poorer indeed,” said Colonel A. E. C. Fraser, MJ3.K, the Deputy Commander of the Commonwealth Division. “The original Anzacs possessed these attributes, the Anzacs of the Middle East and the Pacific maintained and fostered them and it is up to us .to keep them alive and to foster them. The men of Gallipoli, the Diggers and Kiwis of World War II and the Australians and New Zealanders who served through the Korean war have all-given us a great example of service?* In addition to the Turkish visitors and British officers from the Commonwealth Division the parade was watched by Lieutenant-General John H. Collier, general officer commanding No. 1 Corps, United States Army and the commanding officer of the Greek Infantry Battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Cristo ponies. General Collier told the parade:— “The fight for a free world which toqk the lives of your fallen comrades in arms goes on. The devotion to this cause which your forces have so often displayed on the battlefields of the world is a memorial to those proud men you honour on this day.”

SERVICE IN JAPAN WELLINGTON, April 26. Men of the New Zealand frigate Kaniere and K Force, the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Air Force, and other British Commonwealth units attended an Anzae service at Hiro Camp, Kure, Japan, yesterday. A padre of the Australian forces <the Rev. A. W. Laing) conducted the open-air service in the warm sun of a Japanese spring, says a New Zealand correspondent’s description radioed to the Navy Office in Wellington. An address was delivered by the Commander of the Australian Composite Force (Brigadier L. J. Bruton) and the lesson was read by the Commander of K Force (LieutenantColonel J. A. Poultney). Chief Petty Officer R. B. Durham' (Takapuna) read Binyon’s lines, and another New Zealand Navy man, Ordinary Seaman N. A. Braxton (Invercargill) gave the bugle call.

SERVICE AT WAIKARI A combined Anzac Day service for the Waikari and Hawarden districts was held in the Waikari public hall in the afternoon. The service was conducted by the Rev. M. J. Goodall, assisted by the Rev. K. L. Warren. The address was given by Dr. D. E. Hansen, of Christchurch. After the service, the congregation marched to the war memorial in procession, headed by a parade of 35 members of the WaikanHawarden branch of the Returned Services" Association. Hawarden and Waikari troops of Boy Scouts, and Waikari Girl Guides. Wreaths were laid at tha

DARFIELD Anzac Day services held in the Malvern district at Hororata, Kowai Bush, Darfield and Sheffield were well attended. Mr A I. Cottrell was the speaker at Darfield. After a service to the Memorial Hall conducted by the rterMr *b e afternoon tea to former servicemen and Hietr friends by women of the district. Eartier Reference Page 6)