ANZAC DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 April 1938, Page 7

ANZAC DAY

OBSERVANCE YESTERDAY MUNICIPAL HALL CROWDED OUT. ADDRESS BY THE REV. E. J. RICH Masterton observed Anzac Day yesterday with . traditional solemnity. A steady drizzle made it impossible to hold the Wairarapa Returned Soldiers’ Association memorial service in the Park and it took place in the .Municipal Hall, which was packed to overflowing. The Rev E. J. Rich, C.F., presided and delivered an impressive address appropriate to the occasion. Among others, the association Wreath of Remembrance was later laid on the War Memorial in the Park by Major J. H. Irving, E.D., president of the association.

Headed by the Masterton Municipal Band, about 200 returned men marched from the Soldiers’ Club to the Hall, while a party of Legion of Frontiersmen added colour to the parade, which also included South African War Veterans, Territorials, Wairarapa College Cadets, Boy Scouts, Cubs and Girl Guides. Two minutes silence followed the singing of the National Anthem and Mr Rich's address, while later the Recessional was sung by the gathering. After the ceremony the returned men and others were entertained at morning tea at the Soldiers' Club by the Lady Liverpool Ladies’ Committee, assisted by a large number of willing helpers. Members of the Liverpool Committee desire to thank all who generously contributed to the morning tea.

“Today in this great service,” Mr Rich said in his address, “our minds go back over the years that are gone and we live again through those four strenuous years when so much that men held dear was at stake and men and women went forth from New Zealand, and indeed from every part of our great Empire, to fight for what they believed was the cause of righteouness and of honour.” So Anzac Day came each year as a day of glorious and ever-living memory on which we held in proud and thankful remembrance the men of our own kith and kin for whom no sacrifice was too tremendous, no ordeal too hideous, when the cause of freedom and their country’s honour called them. God forbid, he continued, that we should ever forget of them that they offered their lives. What else was there left for them to offer? They went readily, sealing in their own blood their country’s nationhood. Life for them was sweet and precious and yet they went forth, never doubting even in the blackest day what the Result would be. Unconquered except by would be. Unconquered except by death the power of which they conquered, they deemed death itself a nobler thing than to live unworthily. No wonder they lived again for us today, as they would always live in our memories, no wonder our hearts stirred as the men marched through the streets in the rain to the hall. They felt again today a pride in having had such men as comrades, a band of brothers who went forth untrained in the art of war but inspired by a great ideal. As the years went' by, and they were going fast for the returned men, the memory of many things grew dim, but the memory of those days of fellowship in service could never fade. The bitterness and sadness had gone now and we thought of them as men whose heroism, whose simple faith, whose idealism, who rugged resolution, unvoiced but expressed in action, needed no idle boast, but just a grim determination to stick it out. They knew what they faced and did not flinch. Every Anzac Day recalled those moments which came to all returned men, moments of which they did not often speak, moments when there was a silence in their .hearts when they lived again those days, which for them could never die. They felt again the presence of the men they learnt to know and to love. They saw again the vision which had lit up the years foi them, and for which, with many a fall and with stumbling, halting feet, they yet groped and to which one day, please God. they would yet attain.

The qualities of the men that made Anzac Day live and which saw count less multitudes, not only in Sydney but in every village, town and city, gather that day to do honour to the glorious dead, were qualities that were needed desperately today. Sometime it seemed as if the greater measure of glory had departed from the race, as if man’s pledged word counted for nought, as if selfishness detei - mined the dealings of men and of nations. But men and women of our race could novel- be content to have it so and, to them and to us all, Anzac Day came as a yearly reminder to a generation starved of spiritual greatness that at times of crisis and of danger members of the human race, flesh and blood like ourselves, could forget self and did not flinch for a reason which demanded of them their all. with no thought of price or reward. Mr Rich said he had . read somewhere that following a raid a soldier was left behind wounded. A comrade sought permission to go and bring him in but permission was refused. He asked again and his officer said: "What is 'the use? You would be sure to get hit and your friend is probably dead.” The

soldier, however, persisted, and in the end permission was given. He returned a little later and fell mortally wounded into the trench with his dead comrade in his arms. Sadly the officer looked down on him and said, “Lad, I told you it wasn’t worth while, your friend is dead and you are badly wounded.” Back came the reply: “Yes, it was worth while. He was alive when I got to him and he said to me, I knew you’d come, I knew you’d come.” Anzac Day spoke to us of the great challenge faced in the days gone by and of the challenge to be faced by this generation. Sometimes it might seem that the rebuilding of a stricken world was a job too hard, but when we became disheartened and were tempted to let things slide the memory of the men they honoured that day would always remind us that the spirit of sacrifice and of service was always worth while. Of us, tbo, it would be said as we went out and lived to make this a better world: “We knew you’d come, we knew you’d come.” Miss P. Jordan (in the absence of the Mayoress, Mrs T. Jordan) with Miss Nancy Morrison, sold poppies on Anzac Day at the Soldiers’ Club and Misses J. Prentice and N. McLaren conducted the sales at the Municipal Hall. •

The name of Mrs S. J. Munn was inadvertently misprinted in the list of poppy sellers published on .Saturday. NO FALLING AWAY SERVICES THROUGHOUT DOMINION. WELLINGTON ASSEMBLAGES. Messages from all parts of the Dominion show that Anzac Day was appropriately commemorated everywhere with no falling away from the standards set in other years. With martial music and tramp of marching feet, with crowded streets and solemn religious services and floral wreaths of remembrance, Wellington yesterday celebrated Anzac Day with a fervour that showed more than a score of years had not sufficed to dim the memories of wartime sacrifice and endeavour. Despite the toll of the years and the absence of many former soldiers with the contingent now visiting Sydney, the parade of returned men who marched through the streets in procession to the Wellington War Memorial, where the principal service was held, was the largest ever recorded. Throughout city and suburbs, scenes of unprecedented interest marked Anzac Day observances. The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon M. J. Savage, and the Hon P. Fraser attended the service at the Wellington War Memorial, when Mr Savage, for the Government and-representatives of all branches of the Services laid wreaths on the steps of the shrine. Ten bands, 1200 military and some 2000 returned soldiers, as well as cadets, scouts and guides, nurses and ambulance brigadesmen, stood in close ranks round the memorial. A vast concourse of people covered every available yard of street, the green hill in front of Parliament Buildings and the steps, balconies, and even roofs of every building commanding the scene; but the whole crowd stood in absolute silence, the men bareheaded in the wind, when Archdeacon W. Bullock, Chaplain to the Forces, exclaimed: “So once again New Zealand and Australia and the whole Commonwealth are as one vast hall of memories. In the silence that followed the archdeacon’s address were sounded The Last Post” and the “Reveille,” the two impressive wartime bugle-calls. Afterward the parade march past the War Memorial, and dispersed. The ceremony of the Retreat was later carried out in the presence of a considerably diminished audience. Record attendances were reported yesterday morning at many of the special Anzac Day services held in all Wellington and Hutt Valley suburbs. Officials of the Returned Soldiers’ Association stated that the observances were by far the most enthusiastic for many years.