DAWN PARADE.
SCENES IN THE CAPITAL. WELLINGTON, April 25. In the period just before dawn, which every lighting man remembers as the time to “stand to” before going over the ton, 2500 returned soldiers assembled in Wellington this morning for the dawn parade at the Citizens’ War Memorial to honour their companions who did not return. The total attendance was approximately 7000. Soldiers and civilians, men and women, of all stations in’ life, from the Prime Minister to the humblest citizen, took part. There were returned men from all parts of New Zealand, and representatives of practically every ex-service-men’s organisation in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The morning was perfect —mild and still. Before daybreak had come the assembled veterans marched from the railway station in the semi-darkness as they had all marched together in the 1914-18 years, but on this occasion not to face death, but to remember those comrades who had met it. The report of a light field gun 6et on the rise of Parliament grounds heralded the dawn and the early morning light divorced from the darkness the spectacle of a great and reverent concourse. The ceremony occupied but 30 minutes, but it conveyed as no lengthy and colourful pageant could the spirit of Anzac.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MS19400426.2.108.5
Bibliographic details
Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 125, 26 April 1940, Page 9
Word Count
209DAWN PARADE. Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 125, 26 April 1940, Page 9
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Manawatu Standard. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in