Mudgee marked Anzac Day at the Robertson Park cenotaph yesterday, commemorating the fallen and showing respect to the former and current servicemen and women present.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“We are assembled here to commemorate that immortal day when the young men of Australia, by their deeds and sacrifice, demonstrated to the world at Gallipoli that Australia was truly a nation,” said RSL president John Graham.
The day’s guest speaker was Mudgee High School student Brayden Palmer, who was sponsored by Club Mudgee to walk the Kokoda Track late last year.
“To walk the Kokoda Track in 2012 was hard,” he said. “To fight along the Kokoda Track in 1942 is incomprehensible.”
Most importantly, he said, the walk had given him a greater appreciation and understanding of what the soldiers on the Kokoda Track experienced.
“What those brave men did was nothing short of superhuman,” he said.
“Faced with a challenge that we can’t even imagine, the soldiers managed to rise up against adversity and bind together to fight for a common cause.”
Brayden said he had been inspired by the stories he heard along the way of acts of valour, often performed by individuals, that changed the course of the war.
“Today, we stop and take notice of these stories, not just from Kokoda, but from every conflict where Australians and New Zealanders have given their time, their safety and their lives for the wellbeing and security of this country,” Brayden said.
“It is because of their courage, mateship, endurance and sacrifice that we stand here today, living the lives that we live.
“To them we say thank you. Lest we forget.”
This year’s Anzac Day theme was “Prisoners of War”, and John Graham spoke of the suffering undergone by prisoners of war as they faced disease, starvation, exhausting work, cruel treatment and murder.
“No one goes off to war thinking they will be killed or captured, but all realise it is a possibility,” he said.
Over 4000 Australians spent time as prisoners of war in World War One, and around 400 of them died.
In World War Two, nearly 31,000 Australians were taken prisoner, with deaths among Japan’s Australian prisoners of war totalling more than a quarter of all Australia’s fatalities in the war.
“It is not surprising that so many died,” he said. “What is surprising is that so many lived.”
He said the number of survivors was due largely to the magnificent work of medical officers and orderlies in prisoner of war camps, as well as the willingness of men to look after their fellow prisoners, even to starve themselves to feed a mate.
Mr Graham thanked the Mudgee Public School and community band for providing the service’s music, Mudgee Radio Taxis for conveying veterans who could not march, and council’s parks and gardens department for presenting the cenotaph at its usual high standard and removing the graffiti that marred the memorial clock tower last week.
Earlier in the day, a large crowd gathered at the Dawn Service.