ANZAC DAY IN JAPAN

Evening Star, Issue 26087, 29 April 1947, Page 8

ANZAC DAY IN JAPAN

DAWN SERVICES AND IMPOSING PARADE (Official News Service.) KURE, April 25. The hills around Hiro echoed to a new sound this morning as members of the 34th Australian Brigade and many others solemnly intoned the words, “ Lest AVe Forget,” at the Anzac Day dawn service. In the dim light of the breaking dawn a cross picked out in electric lights illuminated the Australian Ensign flying at half-mast. The morning star shone in solitary splendour over Mount Yoshimatsu, and the first of the main celebrations of Anzac Day reached its climax as Air ViceMarshal C. M. Bladin, acting comman-der-in-chief of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces, recited: “ At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.” Simultaneously with dawn services throughout the area Australian and New Zealand troops of the 8.C.0.F. paid homage to their dead of both world wars, and commemorated the sacrifices of their fathers and elder brothers on the beaches of Gallipoli on April 25. Following the dawn service at Hiro, an imposing parade of 8.C.0.F. troops was held at Anzac Park, in Kure. The troops on parade consisted of Australians, New Zealanders, and men of the United Kingdom and India. Special contingents were present from the 2nd N.Z.E.F. area, and from the Indian urea, which sent 100 Gurkhas. In Tokio this morning 650 officers and men of the 67th Australian Battalion. representatives of 8.C.0.F. organisations, and civilians stationed in the Japanese capital, all paid solemn tribute to the memory of Anzac. It was the first dawn parade ever held in Tokio.'