Community gathers to remember on Anzac day

WORDS & PHOTOS / JULIA WADE

From dawn to noon, locals gathered on New Zealand’s auspicious Anzac Day, April 25, to remember and honour the many who served and paid the ultimate price in war, conflict and duty.

As the sun rose over Mangawhai's serene estuary waters, the poignant melody of the Last Post stirred a crowd of more than 90 locals who gathered along Alamar Crescent at Mangawhai’s first official dawn parade.

Organised by local former service personnel from the NZ Defence Force and NZ Police, who proudly started with a parade, and MC’d by Vietnam veteran Dave Chisholm, the 45-minute ceremony included speeches, wreath laying, reverent silence, the Australian and New Zealand national anthems, Anzac biscuits washed down with a ‘traditional tot of rum’, and an unusual touch with dramatic sound effects highlighting the horrific experience of war.

Knowledge of the event was word-of-mouth and Chisholm says the servicemen hope to repeat the event next year.

“Depending on feedback we will hold another dawn service in 2022, but with a bit more work, might just add a couple more refinements.”

Elsewhere, at 10am, under a bright autumn sky, hundreds of locals watched returned service men and women, and representatives from NZ Army, Air Force and Navy, local police, St John, council members and local schools, lay wreaths at Hakaru’s RSA cenotaph under the watchful guard of Mangawhai’s cadets in an emotive ceremony that began with a RNZAF Seasprite helicopter fly-by.

RSA president Bill Warren led the service along with vice president, former Navy Lieutenant Samuel Turner, and parade officer, ex-Lieutenant Army officer for three decades, Pita Paraka. In his speech, guest speaker RNZAF Whenuapai Air Base Wing Commander Phil Jackson spoke of the enduring friendship between Kiwis and Australians in war times, ‘they could always rely on each other’ as well as the potential for once-warring nations to set aside their differences and even find love.

“Seventy years ago today, New Zealand soldiers were… in the Battle of Kapyong, South Korea… Kiwis and Australians were looking forward to a joint Anzac Day Parade which would also have involved Turkish troops, but instead were in the thick of the battle,” he says. “One other remarkable element was that a few years after the terrible global conflict (WWII), some New Zealand soldiers and Japanese women were able to put aside their prejudices and enmity of war, and fall in love.”

Jackson also spoke of the diversity of NZ’s defence force operations in Timor-Leste, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan as well as the ‘great strain’ placed ‘on military personnel and their families’ during the services involvement in monitoring the Covid-19 managed isolation and quarantine facilities.

“There can be no doubt that our nation’s role in these conflicts has had a tremendous impact on New Zealand history and society,” he says. “Above all, the terrible losses suffered by our country at Gallipoli and on so many other battlefields brought grief and loss to homes across the country.

“Today’s military personnel, like those gone before them, are dedicated to upholding national interests and principles we hold dear. On Anzac Day we also acknowledge how this modern service is never without costs to our men and women in the armed forces and their families.”