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Remembrance Day
 On the 11th Hour, of the 11th Day of the 11th Month - The Armistace was signed ending four long years of bloody conflict
''In honour of those gallant and noble men who made the supreme sacrifice with pride, courage and integrity. Your deeds will never be forgotten. "
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Remembrance Day is the day Australians remember those who have died in war.
In 1918 the armistice that ended World War I came into force, bringing to an end four years of hostilities that saw 61 919 Australians die at sea, in the air, and on foreign soil. Few Australian families were left untouched by the events of World War I - 'the war to end all wars' most had lost a father, son, daughter, brother, sister or friend.
At 11am on 11 November we pause to remember the sacrifice of those men and women who have died or suffered in wars and conflicts and all those who have served during the past 100 years.
Origin
At 5am on 11 November 1918, three German government representatives accepted the armistice terms presented to them by an allied commander, General Foch of the French Army. The demands of the armistice included the withdrawal of German forces to the east bank of the Rhine within 30 days; immediate cessation of warfare; and surrender of the German fleet and all heavy guns with no further negotiations until the signing of the peace treaty.
The armistice became effective at 11am the same day, and as the guns fell silent on the Western Front in France and Belgium, four years of hostilities ended.
The cease-fire was made permanent the following year when members of the Commonwealth and the League of Nations signed the Treaty of Versailles. People across the world celebrated the war's end - celebrations tempered by thoughts of the enormous suffering and loss of life resulting from the war.
More than 416 000 Australians volunteered for service in World War I. Of these, 324 000 served overseas. More than 60 000 Australians were killed, including 45 000 who died on the Western Front in France and Belgium and more than 8 000 who died on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.
In Australia and other allied countries, including New Zealand, Canada and the United States, 11 November became known as Armistice Day - a day to remember those who died in World War I. The day continues to be commemorated in Allied countries.
After World War II the Australian Government agreed to the United Kingdom's proposal that Armistice Day be renamed Remembrance Day to commemorate those who were killed in both World Wars. Today the loss of Australian lives from all wars and conflicts is commemorated on Remembrance Day.
In October 1997 the Governor-General issued a Proclamation declaring 11 November as Remembrance Day - a day to remember the sacrifice of those who have died for Australia in wars and conflicts.
The Proclamation reinforced the importance of Remembrance Day and encouraged all Australians to renew their observance of the event.
Silence
The central element of Remembrance Day ceremonies is the one minute silence.
A Melbourne journalist, Edward George Honey, first proposed a period of silence for national remembrance in a letter published in the London Evening News on 8 May 1919.
The suggestion came to the attention of King George V. After testing the practicality of five minutes silence - a trial was held with five Grenadier Guardsmen standing to attention for the silence - the King issued a proclamation on 7 November 1919 which called for a two-minute silence. His proclamation requested that "all locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead".
At 11am on 11 November 1919, Australians, for the first time, paused and stood in silent tribute to the men and women of the Australian Imperial Force who died on battlefields in the Middle East, Gallipoli and Europe.
In 1997 the Governor-General issued a Proclamation urging all Australians to observe the one minute silence on Remembrance Day. It is still appropriate for two minutes silence to be observed.
Poppies
In May 1915 Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps was working in a dressing station on the front line to the north of Ieper, Belgium, when he wrote In Flanders Fields:
In 1918 Moira Michael, an American, wrote a poem in reply, We shall keep the faith, in which she promised to wear a poppy 'in honour of our dead' and so began the tradition of wearing a poppy in remembrance.
It was French YMCA Secretary, Madame Guerin, who in 1918 conceived the idea of selling silk poppies to help needy soldiers.
Poppies were first sold in England on Armistice Day in 1921 by members of the British Legion to raise money for those who had been incapacitated by the war.
The practice began in Australia the same year, promoted by the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (now known as the Returned & Services League of Australia - or RSL).
In the lead-up to 11 November each year, the RSL sells red poppies for Australians to pin on their lapels, with proceeds helping the organisation undertake welfare work.
Since 1921 wearing a poppy has enabled Australians to show they have not forgotten the 102 811 Australian servicemen and women who have given their lives in wars and conflicts during the past 100 years.
Flanders poppy seeds may be grown in Australian gardens. By planting the seeds in April, the poppies bloom in November, in time for Remembrance Day. They serve as a visual reminder of those Australians who have died in war.
Rosemary
The Ancient Greeks believed that rosemary made their memories stronger. This idea has been carried on today when people wear sprigs of rosemary as a symbol of remembrance for those who have died in wars.
Above Information provided from the Department of Veterans Affairs Website
Copyright © Commonwealth of Australia 2000.
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FOR THE FALLEN
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up unto immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known,
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Laurence Binyon
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Lest We Forget
The Last Anzacs
The Authors-Historians
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Albert Edward Matthews.
Born 11 November 1896, landed on Gallipoli 25 April 1915, served there until 19 December 1915; Died 9 December 1997.
The Governor-General of Australia, Sir William Deane delivered this tribute at the State funeral of Ted Matthews, the last of the Australians to land at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.
Ted Matthews was the last surviving Australian of the approximately 16,000 men of the Australian and New Zealand Armed Corps who landed at what is now Anzac Cove on that fateful day more than 82 years ago.
This is truly a time for reflection about our country's first Anzacs and about what the loss of the last of them means to us all.
The national significance of that loss is difficult to articulate. That is because it's impossible to adequately express all that we mean and feel when we invoke or commemorate the events of that day when the first ANZACs landed at Gallipoli.
It is, as Manning Clark wrote, "something too deep for words". It stretches out to encompass not only the sacrifice of those first Anzacs but of all who have fought in our forces - in the following days and months at Gallipoli or on other battle fields of the First World War, in the Second World War, in Korea, in Vietnam and in other places.
It is about the spirit, the depth, the meaning, the very essence of our nation. And it is about sadness and grief for young lives cut short and dreams left unfulfilled. And horror at the carnage of war.
Throughout his life, Ted Matthews was to say that the main purpose of Anzac Day was to remind us of the evils of war. And in saying that he would recall that he had almost been one of the first casualties: only a thick pocket-book which his mother had given him saved him when he was struck in the chest by a piece of shrapnel.
Ted Matthews would also say that he was not one of the real heroes. He was a signaller and the infantry, he said, had the worst of it.
Yet he was there at Gallipoli, without respite, for the whole duration of the stalemate: through the heat, and the flies, and the stench of death, and disease, and attack, and counter-attack, and the cold as winter drew on. And the bonds which transcended and transcend individual mortality were forged between those men and the soul of our nation.
For Anzac is also about courage, and endurance, and duty, and mateship, and good humour, and the survival of a sense of self-worth: the sum of those human and national values which our pioneers found in the raw bush of a new world and tested in the old world for the first time at Gallipoli.
They were not found wanting, not even in the face of overwhelming odds and the final realisation of the inevitability of failure. The significance of Anzac to our nation was apparent at the time. The official war historian, Charles Bean, observed that for eight months the "most intense feelings" of all Australians and New Zealanders were "tied to those few acres of Turkish hillside".
Indeed, when the first Anzac Day commemoration was held in 1916 - a day of profound solemnity and national sorrow - the news journals wrote that "the price of nationhood must be paid in blood and tears". And so it has been.
But not all was failure. One triumph of initiative and daring of the Gallipoli campaign was the manner in which it ended: 80,000 men were evacuated from Anzac Cove, as later were the British troops from Cape Helles, with a mere handful of casualties. Before the Turkish Army was even aware of it, the forces had gone.
Yet leaving was for many of the Anzacs the greatest tragedy of all since it meant leaving their dead mates buried in an alien land so far from home. One of the departing diggers expressed it well:
Not only muffled is our tread
To cheat the foe,
We fear to rouse our honoured dead
To heal us go.
Sleep sound, old friends - the keenest smart
Which, more than failure, wounds the heart,
Is thus to leave you - thus to part.
Obviously, that young-soldier poet could not have foreseen that, more than 80 years on, thousands of Australians, many of them young Australians carrying backpacks, would each year return to visit with those "honoured dead" and to watch another dawn break over Anzac Cove.
Ted Matthews had been among the last of the Australians to go, leaving on the night of December 19, 1915. He was therefore at Gallipoli from the beginning until the very end, and his passing marks a final break in a living thread that united us Australians with the complete Anzac epic.
But, the legacies of valour and of national identity and sentiment left by him and his companions outlive them and will outlive all of us.
With Ted's death, the first Anzacs have now all gone. Yet "their spirit walks abroad". To inspire and sustain our nation for so long as it exists and listens to the whispers of those things "too deep for words" that are heard by all who have true love of our country and its people in their hearts.
Truly, he was the quintessential Australian. May he rest with God.
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Lance Sergeant Roy Longmore
2nd Pioneer Battalion
Australian Imperial Force
Roy Longmore was aged 21 years 2 months when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 13 July 1915 at Melbourne, Victoria. He joined the 3rd Reinforcements, 21st Battalion with the Regimental Number 2025.
After training, Private Longmore embarked on the 26 August 1915 and joined his unit at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, on 12 October 1915. At the conclusion of the Gallipoli campaign he returned to Egypt, was transferred to the 2nd Pioneer Battalion on 4 March 1916, and embarked for France, disembarking at Marseille on 26 April 1916.
He was wounded in action at Pozières on 28 August 1916 but remained on duty.
He was promoted to Corporal on 13 November 1916.
Corporal Longmore was in England from 17 August 1917 to 1 April 1918 with the Pioneers Training Battalion and the NCOs’ Training School.
He returned to France on 1 April 1918 and rejoined the 2nd Pioneer Battalion on 11 April 1918. He was again wounded in action on 16 April 1918 but remained at duty. He was promoted to Lance Sergeant on 5 June 1918.
Lance Sergeant Longmore was in hospital from 14 June to 6 September 1918. He rejoined his unit on 8 September 1918 but was wounded in action at Montbrehain on 5 October 1918, suffering shell wounds to the right thigh, left knee and right arm, and was invalided to England on 9 October 1918.
Lance Sergeant Longmore departed for Australia on 16 March 1919 on board HMT Czaritza, was transferred to the hospital ship Dunluce Castle, and disembarked in Melbourne on 15 May 1919. He was discharged on 18 July 1919 as medically unfit. In recognition of his overseas service, Lance Sergeant Longmore was awarded the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
The 2nd Pioneer Battalion, with which Lance Sergeant Longmore saw action in France, was part of the Australian Imperial Force, and was involved in actions in France at Pozières (1916), Flers (1916), Bullecourt (1917), Ville-sur-Ancre and Morlancourt (1918), and Montbrehain (1918).
After the war Roy married Lillian Taylor. The couple had one son, Eric. Roy Longmore received France’s highest honour, the Legion of Honour (Legion d’Honneur) medal, in 1998 and in 1999 was presented with the 80th Anniversary Armistice Remembrance Medal.
Roy was one of the last two remaining Gallipoli Veterans.
He died peacefully in his sleep in a Burwood Nursing Home aged 107years on the 21st June 2001
The above data has been extracted from the Australian Imperial Force records for Roy Longmore, held in the National Archives of Australia, and from the Official History of Australia in the War of
1914-1918. Taken from Department of Veteran Affairs Website.
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Alec Campbell
Farewell the Anzacs
By Andrew Darby
May 17 2002
Alec Campbell, nicknamed The Kid, enlisted at 16 after lying about his age.
Alec Campbell, the last of the Gallipoli Anzacs, has died at the age of 103.
His death yesterday marks the passing of a generation who fought in the Dardanelles campaign.
Mr Campbell suffered a chest infection earlier this week and his condition deteriorated rapidly yesterday. He died at his Hobart nursing home about 6pm.
Prime Minister John Howard described Mr Campbell as the last living link to that group of Australians that established the Anzac legend. "It is a story of great valour under fire, unity of purpose and a willingness to fight against the odds that has helped to define what it means to be an Australian."
Mr Howard sent his condolences to the Campbell family and offered a state funeral "as a mark of a grateful nation".
"Not only is he the last Australian Anzac, he is also the last known person anywhere in the world who served in that extraordinarily tragic campaign," Mr Howard told parliament last night.
Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale said the Anzacs fought with the kind of courage, integrity and honour that Australia would never forget. "It is a legacy that will live on."
Les Carlyon, who wrote the book Gallipoli, said: "It is perhaps the strangest thing that at a time when there is now no one left alive, interest in the story has probably never been greater."
He said the last Turkish soldier died some years ago and the last English veteran died recently.
Victorian RSL president Bruce Ruxton described Mr Campbell's death as "a very historical moment".
"He lived throughout the 20th century, went to war as a boy soldier and had a pretty tough working life and then finally succumbed."
Regarded in his latter years as a national treasure, Mr Campbell was last seen in public on Anzac Day in Hobart. Despite his deteriorating health, he attended the parade in a car with a sign behind the windscreen bearing one word: Gallipoli.
Mr Campbell was a small, young, Tasmanian teenager when he volunteered for the army. He later described himself as "16 and silly".
He landed at Anzac Cove seven months after the first landing, on November 2, 1915. He carried vital ammunition and water from the boats to the trenches, a dangerous task under heavy Turkish fire. After more than a month there, illness forced his evacuation, and he was medically discharged in August, 1916.
"I enjoyed some of it; I didn't enjoy some of it. I'm not a philosopher. Gallipoli was Gallipoli. That's all there was about it," he said.
After the war Mr Campbell worked as a jackeroo, carpenter, and public servant, and gained an economics degree at the age of 50. He also built boats and sailed in six Sydney-to-Hobart races.
Over the past decade, as the numbers of other veterans dwindled, Mr Campbell's status increased. The second-last to die was Victorian Roy Longmore, on June 22 last year.
Aided by his wife Kathleen, Mr Campbell always courteously received the constant stream of visitors to his Hobart home, until shortly before his last birthday in February, when he moved into the nearby nursing home.
Mr Campbell found walking more difficult, had a hearing problem, and was blind in one eye. But the other twinkled when he spoke.
When it was put to him on Anzac Day 2000 that he had become a figure in Australian history, Mr Campbell replied with a laugh: "I didn't know that . . . thanks for telling me."
Told he was the last Gallipoli veteran, Mr Campbell replied: "Oh well, that won't last for ever."
He is survived by Kathleen, nine children, 30 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
Information Source -The Age Newspaper
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Walter Parker
Born in Sydney on 11 August 1894, Mr Walker, was a commercial art printer before enlisting in June 1915 at Liverpool, New South Wales, was appointed to the 4th Reinforcements, 20th Battalion.
Having completed basic training, Private Parker embarked for Egypt in October 1915 and proceeded to Gallipoli where he was taken on strength of the 20th Battalion in November.
In March 1916, Private Parker was posted to France with the 20th Battalion which was involved in significant actions at Armentières and Pozières.
In August 1916 he was wounded in action at Pozières suffering a gun shot wound to the left arm and was evacuated to England.
Private Parker did not return to France. Instead he embarked on the Berrima to return to Australia in October 1917.
Following discharge, Mr Parker sampled a number of vocations, including working on a dairy farm, a banana farm, a market garden and merchandising.
In 1990 Walter Parker returned to Gallipoli with the official Australian Government mission for the 75th Anniversary of the landing at Anzac Cove.
On 10 November 1998 the French Consul-General to Australia, presented Mr Walker with a Legion of Honour for his service to France during World War I.
On 29 April last year, Mr Scott presented the 80th Anniversary Armistice Remembrance Medal to Mr Parker.
Walter Parker along with Alec Campbell and Roy Longmore were honoured by Australia Post on 21 January 2000 as Living Legends at the launch of the ‘Last Anzacs Stamp series’.
Mr Parker died on Saturday 22 January in his Melbourne nursing home. He was aged 105.
Information Source - Department of Veteran Affairs
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