COMMEMORATION OF ANZAC IN TIME OF WAR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 96, 26 April 1940, Page 6

COMMEMORATION OF ANZAC IN TIME OF WAR

TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY TWO SERVICES IN WANGANUI AND A DAWN PARADE MORE RETURNED SOLDIERS ATTEND THAN AT ANY OTHER TIME Commemoration services were held at various centres in New Zealand yesterday, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps on the Gallipoli Peninsula, Wanganui marked the day with three services, the first being the parade of returned soldiers to the Cenotaph in Queen's Park at dawn, the second a combined Maori and European service at Moutoa Gardens round the memorial to Maoris who fell in the Great War. The third was a civic service on Cook’s Gardens, which was attended by the largest parade of returned soldiers since peace was declared. There were more than 500. Speakers at the services stressed the significance of commemorating Anzae Day at a time when the nation is at war. At Moutoa Gardens Archdeacon .1. K. Young, M.A., referred to the day as the “silver jubilee of a golden adventure of courage . . . that we had won that last war, but had been defeated by the Peace . . . that we should not let that happen again, but to get to the peace we had to win we had to go through war first.” The Rev. J. H. Datson, C.F.. speaking at Cook’s Gardens in the afternoon, emphasised that while people were commemorating those who fell in the last war they were thinking, too, of those who had fallen in the present conflict. He said that in the last war men had learned the lesson of sharing, of giving rather than taking, and had founded a comradeship ami unity to whu h the people of to-day should rededicate themselves. He referred to the cause of which they died as being an Anzae bequest. Last night returned soldiers in Wanganui staged the wartime extravaganza, “The Anzaes .March Again.” It was a great success. Services were held in Bulls. Marton. Waverley, Taihape, Brunswick, Maxwell and other centres in the Wanganui district. They were on the same lines as those held in most of the cities and towns in the Dominion. In Wellington there was a special Dawn Parade attended bv Australian representatives.