WAR DEAD REMEMBERED

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 115, 11 November 1935, Page 10

WAR DEAD REMEMBERED

PARADE AT CENOTAPH

TWO-MINUTE SILENCE

As the clocks of the city commenced !to tirike the eleventh hour this mornIng a gun boomed out from the saluting battery at Point Jerhinghain and a | silence fell upon the city. Above tha j hush the bells of two clocks could ba heard clearly, but vehicles were stopI ped and hurrying feet came to rest while thousands of people stood still to honour the memory of the million Empire dead who fell in the Great' War before hostilities ceased at 11 a.m. on November 11, seventeen yeans ago. The annual pause in the busy rush of the Empire's life, observed at 11 a.m: on Armistice Day, is of special significance to those'who served in th-j Great War, the silence observed always recalling to memory the many good comrades who fell on the battlefield or were lost at sea, and conseauently the principal service today was conducted by the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association and the Wellington Returned Soldiers'. Association. Shortly before 11 o'clock several score returned soldiers paraded before the Wellington Citizens' War Memorial under Lieutenant-Colonel A. Cowles, V.D., president of the Wellington R.S.A., and a few minutes later the president of the N.Z.R.S.A. (the Hon. W. Perry, M.L.C.). the secretary (Mr. S. J. Harrison) bearing the standard of the N.Z.R.S.A., several members of the executive, the Minister of Defence (the Hon. J. G. Cobbe) and the Dominion president of the South African War Veterans' Association (Mr. J. I. Goldsmith) lined up on the steps on . the right of the shrine, and members of the- executive of the Wellington R S.A. faced them from the left side. Bugler-Sergeant C. E. James . and . Bugler B. Hooker stood to the left ot ', the door of the shrine and Trumpet- ' Major F. C. Chegwin- took- up hisposi- ; tion on.the right. . , ■ MEMORIAL, WREATH. . '. Immediately before'the hour Colonel 1 Cowles, accompanied by the secretary 1 of the Wellington . B.S.A. (Mr. J. : Spence), advanced up the steps carry--1 ing a large wreath, which was placed ' within the shrine. Upon emerging from ' the shine they turned to facs the Ceno- ) taph, ahd the parade came to atten--1 tion as the first gun boomed out. There i was a fairly large gathering ot the 1 public in addition to the-returned '• soldiers and members of the nursing 1 =ervice, and all stood silent. The flag 1 over Parliament Buildings-was run t - the top of the mast before the gu'.i I f sounded, but was dropped to half-mast. 1 at the commencement of the silence. " At two minutes past eleven the gun 0 sounded-again and the electric power, * which had been shut off .from the city, returned to set the machines of indus-

try running once more. The two buglers sounded the Last Post" and the trumpeter followed with "Roveille" while the returned. soldiers saluted. As the bustle of city life resumed many ot those before the Cenotaph filed forward to enter the shrina and pay homage to'the memory of ■ kinsmen or friends.