It is one hundred years since the first NZ Defence Force chaplain was killed on active duty.

The service will be attended by the Governor-General, His Excellency, Lieutenant General The Right Honourable Sir Jerry Mateparae, Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant General (LTGEN) Tim Keating, past and present NZ Defence Force chaplains, and relatives of two NZ Defence Force chaplains who died on active duty.

56 year old Chaplain-Major William Grant was killed on 28 August 1915, during a firefight.

He was killed while tending to wounds and recovering bodies of the fallen.

He is buried at Gallipoli, and left behind a widow and five children.

Grant received the 1914-15 Star and the Victory Medal for his service.

Relatives of Chaplain-Major William Grant will attend the service, together with members of his former parish in Gisborne.

Chaplain-Major Grant's great-niece will do a scripture reading during the service.

Source

• pacific.scoop.co.nz
• Image: movementonline.org.nz

During a very moving service, members of the student council placed 30 white crosses on the embankment below the Chapel.

Each school and kura in New Zealand (including independent and integrated schools) has been given 30 white crosses.

Each cross is named to include local men, nurses, New Zealand Victoria Cross recipients, the youngest New Zealander who died (aged 17), an All Black captain, and one with the words "Known Unto God" to represent the unknown soldier.

St Peter's College acting deputy principal Bridget Ryan said pupils had been researching the soldiers on the crosses the school had been given.

Corporal Aaron Horrell who has served in Afghanistan spoke to the students about his own 'tours of duty' and the reality of war as it affected him.

Former pupil Jackie Bristow's song Fallen Youth was played on the big screen and a video of fallen soldiers from the Gore area, to the tune of Amazing Grace, was also played.

Ryan said the school held its service on the Tuesday before ANZAC Day so that Horrell could speak to the pupils, not just about Gallipoli but his own experiences serving for the armed forces.

It was a very poignant service," she said.

"Having him speak brings it all home - it makes it real."

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Facebook
• education.govt.nz
• Image: Facebook

McKinley is the founder of Challenge 2000, a youth development organisation based in Johnsonville, Wellington.

On ANZAC weekend Challenge staff, volunteers, gap students and locals produced moving performances that recognised and remembered those who gave their lives and fought for their country.

To commemorate this year's centenary of the battle at Gallipoli the group re-enacted the bravery, courage and heroism of soldiers, nurses, Maori and Pakeha men and women.

"We've performed dramas in our local area before but this year more parishes were involved," said McKinley.

There were so many young people who wanted to take part this year they presented their drama at Johnsonville, Masterton, Eastbourne, Newtown and the Cathedral.

"Some young people attended all 5 Masses," McKinley said.

"Our vocation, service and sacrifice-themed production moved young and old."

"It was also wonderful to be joined by military people currently serving."

In Auckland to mark ANZAC day there was a memorial concert in St Benedict's Church in Newton.

It featured well-known composer/singer and Catholic priest, Father Chris Skinner, as well as musicians from three Auckland Catholic schools, St Mary's and St Peter's Colleges and St Francis School.

Source

• Catholic Diocese of Auckland

Fr David Mullins, SM, was selected for a double pass in the New Zealand Gallipoli ballot last year.

There were 9851 applicants, and only 950 double passes were issued.

But Stuff reported that the retired Fr Mullins, 84, had to withdraw from the trip to Turkey for health reasons.

Instead he will spend Anzac Day morning in his west Auckland home and will possibly attend a service later in the day.

"I will take some quiet time for myself on Anzac morning contemplating the atrocities of war, the uselessness of war and the inability of society to accept that war and friction can be overcome if people get rid of their greed," he said.

The priest's father, Jack Mullins, was wounded on the first day of the Gallipoli landings.

He was to be wounded again at Gallipoli, and was later struck in the head with shrapnel at the battle of the Somme.

But he survived and returned to New Zealand.

Fr Mullins said the battle at Gallipoli was "callous".

"It was a disaster."

His father did not talk much about the war but he wrote stories about what happened on the ship and during the first day of battle - stories Fr Mullins has turned into a book.

Fr Mullins said he admired the many people who attended Anzac Day dawn services around New Zealand.

"Now for me, in my state of life, I prefer a bit more contemplation than ritual, fanfare and bugles."

Having worked in Tonga, Fr Mullins said Pacific nations set good examples of how to avoid conflict.

Sources

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Society of Mary

Now, in an annual event that grows in mythology and status in proportion to the passing of the years, is celebrated the shared combat ordeal of gallant "Johnny Turk" and the Bronzed Anzac.

And why not?

The Turkish forces, well prepared behind excellent defences, used their tactics to good effect, ably led by a professional officer who was to go on to bigger things, such as the fire destruction of Smyrna - namely, Kemal Ataturk.

But, pause for one moment to consider a slightly different scenario.

Let us suspend historical reality for the purposes of this exercise.

What if, say, instead of Gallipoli, the Anzac forces were going into combat with an SS Battalion somewhere in Poland during the Second World War?

Would we then, decades later, be joining up with our comrades in battle to celebrate what both sides had gone through, our enmities forgotten?

Can one commemorate the shared experiences with enemy forces who acted as the military arm of a state carrying out a terrible genocide at the same time?

For it was the night before the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, then called Constantinople, when occurred the arrest, detention and subsequent liquidation of 625 intellectuals, priests and leading figures of the Armenian Empire.

This event is widely held to signal the onset of the first major genocide of the twentieth century, the most blood-drenched period in human history.

What followed was a mass murder of an entirely innocent group of citizens in the Ottoman Empire by means that are still horrifying to contemplate.

By the time Turkey sued for peace in 1918, up to 1.5 million Armenians had been slaughtered, decimating the population of a group of people who had lived in the Fertile Crescent since the dawn of human settlement. Continue reading

Sources

• ABC Religion & Ethics
• Image: The Guardian

Fr Mullins will join 2,000 other New Zealanders commemorating 100 years since the ANZAC landing on the peninsula in Turkey, where more than 8,500 and 2,721 New Zealand soldiers lost their lives.

For Fr Mullins it is a way to connect with his late father Jack, who volunteered in the Canterbury Regiment the day World War I broke out.

"The main thing is to be on the land at Gallipoli. To feel where my father was", Fr Mullins told Stuff reporter Ciara Pratt.

"I've never had the chance until now to go, so I put in the application and decided to hedge my bets.

"It's a bit like Lotto", the retired priest said.

Working as a missionary for many years in Tonga and completing many mission trips, Fr Mullins is used to travel, however at 83 he says travelling is not as easy as it used to be.

"I'm willing to put up with a few difficulties because the New Zealand soldiers put with up with so many difficulties and problems, and sacrificed a lot", he said.

Mr Jack Mullins, a budding journalist at Christchurch Press, saw three years service. An injury early into the ANZAC battle saw him transported to hospital in Alexandria.

After suffering several more injuries he returned to New Zealand in 1917 and resumed his journalism career.

While in Gallipoli, Mr Mullins wrote about his war experiences and sent the reports back to his former employer.

"He never spoke critically of the war and he was proud of the fact he was at Gallipoli", said Fr Mullins.

"In one of his writing he spoke about the captain's sermon on the ship being commendably short, something I've tried to put in practice myself", Fr Mullins said.

Sources

• Society of Mary
• Stuff

I think about the soldiers who went away as members of the British Empire and who came back as New Zealanders. I think about my Grandfather who served in Italy. I think about my shipmates I served with in the Navy and I think about the people I know who are still serving. But since a visit to Gallipoli a few years ago, I also think about the Turks.

It was not until I climbed through the hills of Anzac Cove, surrounded by fellow Kiwis and Aussies, making a pilgrimage to one of our most holy sites, that I realised its about more than the sacrifice our ancestors made.

It's also about the foundation of another great country and their amazing display of grace to us.

In 1934, Ataturk, one of the Turkish army officers in Gallipoli, who later become the first leader of Modern Turkey, wrote an open letter to the mothers of the dead soldiers.

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives; You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace.

"There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.

"You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.

"After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

I also think about how we would react if other countries invaded New Zealand, killed thousands of our soldiers and every year since, they wanted to commemorate the battle on our shores.

Because in essence, that's what we did in Turkey. Yet, somehow, they not only respect our traditions, but they also actively participate in them, standing along side us as we remember.

Lest we forget.

Sources

• Dave Mollard in Stuff
• What does Anzac Day mean to you?
• Image: RSA

They were pleasantly surprised when our group joined them. Mostly young, they were on their way to Gallipoli, with many New Zealanders.

Officials estimated about 7000 attended the combined Dawn Service at Anzac Cove.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave two excellent speeches. At Lone Pine she rose to the occasion splendidly and captured the significance of the Anzacs for our history and our evolving self-understanding.

No Australian at Gallipoli was a conscript; all were free men from a free country.

She explained that the boys of federation became the men of Gallipoli, starting a new story for a new nation.

Despite their defeat, we still take pride in their bravery (seven Victoria Crosses were won at Lone Pine) as we struggle to come to grips with the misery and slaughter.

No country in World War I had a higher casualty rate than Australia except New Zealand.

Most Australians know how 75,000 British Empire and French troops invaded Turkey on April 25, 1915, secured and held two bridgeheads against ferocious Turkish resistance, suffered from heat and then cold, from disease and discomfort, from disappointment at the lack of progress, from the stench of the dying and the nuisance of fat, green "corpse flies" before they withdrew eight months later.

Some other facts are not so well known.

For more than 2000 years, Turkey has been a principal gateway for invading armies between Europe and Asia.

Despite this, their respect for the Allied war graves, their welcome and participation in our memorial services are remarkable gestures.

Some 8700 Australians died on Gallipoli, but 22,000 British soldiers were also killed and there were 250,000 Turkish casualties; 2721 New Zealanders died from a population of 1 million.

Like most Australians, Catholics opposed conscription but supported the Allied war aims.

Many Catholics fought and died and common suffering drew the Protestant and Catholic communities closer.

Ancient wrongs and mutual antagonisms were seen in a new light and Christian forgiveness encouraged greater tolerance.

Only a nation with deep Christian roots and belief in redemptive sacrifice could set this Anzac failure at the heart of its legends.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Image: Zimbio

Cardinal George Pell is Catholic Archbishop of Sydney

Anzac Day is one of those mysterious days. We know the meaning, only what is the meaning precisely? I relate more readily to certain family birthdays and to Easter; more readily to All Souls' Day with its call to remember the departed, surely one of the things that makes us more human, than to Anzac Day. The day is a memorial for the dead, especially now that none of the original men at Gallipoli are alive to tell the story, but what else is it?

My paternal grandfather, Edgar Harvey, was not only an Anzac but among those who landed nearly 100 years ago at the Turkish cove, later named Anzac, on 25 April 1915. Yet the family almost never talked about this, or subsequent events in his wartime experience. It was passed over in silence. It still is, largely.

In a country where Gallipoli is treated as a moment of great national importance, it might be expected that I would feel proud to have a grandfather who fought there and survived. While that is the case, it was never instilled in me to feel that way.

My father rarely if ever talked about his father Edgar's wartime experience. Silences in childhood may come to say that there must be secrets, or there are feelings too hard to express. Just being alive, I came to learn, is what is important, not being proud about knowing someone who was there.

One thing my father, an Anglican, did repeat while I was growing up in the 1960s was Daniel Mannix's claim that the Great War was nothing but a trade war. The vehemence with which he repeated this assertion told me it stung, he was hurt by the truth of it. Continue reading

Sources

• Philip Harvey in Eureka Street
• Image: The Guardian

But a small group is trying to put the battle back on the map. The Passchendaele Society has high-flying supporters, including Robyn Malcolm and Professor Glyn Harper. It's headed by Iain MacKenzie, a former honorary consul to Belgium who cuts a dapper figure in a kilt.

Most Passchendaele commemorations, including films and a ceremony with the Navy band, are being held in Auckland, but the society wants an official national day of remembrance.

New Zealand remembers its fallen and celebrates our nation's birth on Anzac Day. Anzac Day commemorations began in 1916, with a public holiday from 1921, but old-timers recalled that Armistice Day - November 11, commemorating the 1918 Armistice - used to be a bigger day than it is today.

Today, Armistice Day is barely on our memorial calendar. Anzac Day has sidelined it, the dawn ceremony having been imported from Australia in 1939.

Anzac Day fell away during the 1970s. The war generation and the protest generation saw the world differently, but today Anzac Day is effectively New Zealand's national day. Bigger crowds than ever attend ceremonies nationwide.

One reason for the focus on Anzac Day was that Gallipoli was the first big shock for both Australians and New Zealanders. Bearing in mind the size of the loss, 2700 dead or one in four of New Zealand's Force, New Zealanders and Australians have always wanted their own special day.

Britain has at least two memorial days. Every Battle of Britain Day, Spitfires zoom across London's skies, but Armistice Day is still Britain's poppy day.

In the United States, Memorial Day recalls the American Civil War, Americans remember the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as "the day of infamy" and September 11 is seared on the American psyche. Germany also has two days from World War I. Continue reading

Sources

• Lawrence Watt in Stuff
• Image: The Belgians Have Not Forgotten