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Three cheers for the Prince!
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A camera positioned opposite Australia House on The Strand in London, captures Australian troops on parade for Anzac Day, 1919. The vast number of Australian troops is some indication of the scale of Australia's contribution to the war effort.
The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) stands on the raised platform, taking the salute. With him are Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig to the right and HRH Prince Albert (later King George VI) further back, next to Lieutenant General Sir William R Birdwood (left). Also featured on the stand are Billy Hughes (Prime Minister of Australia); Andrew Fisher (Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom); Sir Thomas McKenzie (New Zealand High Commissioner to the United Kingdom); Sir Joseph Cook and Senator Pearce (the Australian Minister for Defence).
The parade ends with Australian and New Zealand troops and British citizens pushing forward and mobbing the Prince of Wales with three cheers!
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Tonight at O’Brien’s
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Savvy theatre operators were quick to recognise the power of the local when it came to filling the house. Many cinemas employed cameramen to record local events, rapidly processed the films, which were then on the cinema screen within days – and people flocked to see themselves.
In this case O’Brien’s Empire Theatre, Dunedin’s De Luxe Picture House, filmed the 1921 Anzac Day Parade (25 April) and the unveiling of the North East Valley Memorial. By 28 April the Otago Daily Times carried the advertisement “Special Announcement Re Anzac Day. Pictures of the unveiling, the wreaths, the children, the parade of Anzacs, the councillors and the crowds etc would be shown that night at O’Brien’s”.
This was a remarkable achievement when you consider the necessary developing, printing, processing, editing and delivery that had to occur to make these events happen so quickly.
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A Hero’s Painful Memories
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Bernard “Tiny” Freyberg VC, CMG, DSO ended World War One a highly decorated hero – celebrated in Britain as well as his homeland of New Zealand. He had served with the British forces: his Distinguished Service Order (DSO) was won at Gallipoli, his Victoria Cross (VC) on the Somme and, at the age of 27, he was made the youngest Brigadier-General in the British Army. He would go on to command the 2nd New Zealand Division in World War Two and become Governor-General of New Zealand.
Born in London, he grew up in New Zealand after his family emigrated and he attended Wellington College, in the capital city.
In 1921, still suffering from the many wounds he received during the war, he returned to New Zealand for several weeks to recuperate. He turned down all requests for public appearances and a civic reception, but he did take time to visit his old school and address an assembly of the boys.
One of those schoolboys, Max Riske, vividly recalled the event some 60 years later in a radio interview. As Max explains, the boys were expecting a stirring speech from a glorious war hero – but got something quite different from the man who had lost two brothers and many friends in the war.
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The Diggers’ March in Sydney
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In April 1938, several thousand New Zealand “diggers” sailed from Wellington for Sydney, where they reunited with their Australian “cobbers” of 1914 – 1918 in a grand Anzac Day procession through the city.
The huge march from the Cenotaph to the Domain, where a commemoration service was held, was part of Australia’s 150th anniversary celebrations and some 50,000 returned servicemen took part – with an estimated half a million people lining the Sydney streets.
In this live radio broadcast from the Wellington waterfront, Station 2ZB announcers – who were veterans themselves – capture the cheering, bands and excitement on the docks. New Zealand Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage farewells the old soldiers as they board former World War One troopships – ‘the Monowai’ and ‘the Maunganui’ – for the trip across the Tasman.
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Marching in Dunedin
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Following an ANZAC Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in Queen's Garden, Dunedin, hundreds of veterans march down Princes Street. The sheer number of marchers reflects the fact that the Otago and Southland regions provided the largest number of soldiers for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) per head of population. On parade are the 4th Otago Hussars; the 5th Otago Mounted Rifles and marines from a Royal Navy ship. The Battalion Band is followed by officers on horseback and soldiers of the Territorial Regiment. Each company is led by the company commander on horseback, all of whom wear medal ribbons indicating they are World War One veterans.
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Carving Anzac Day
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An Anzac Day cinema advertisement encouraging Australians to not only mark Anzac Day as a day of significance but to 'carve’ its meaning into the nation’s psyche.
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Sydney Marches to Remember
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With their white, starched uniforms and red crosses on their foreheads, 2000 members of the Junior Red Cross make a startling presence at the eleventh anniversary of Anzac Day in Sydney.
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Lest We Forget
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Thousands of Melburnians turn out in the pouring rain in 1925, to honour the fallen of the First World War.
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Australia Day at Burra
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This newsreel shows the then prosperous and bustling mining town of Burra, or the collection of townships known as ‘The Burra’, celebrating Australia Day on July the 30th, predating the now national celebration held on 26 January. At that time there was no nationally recognised national day, instead they usually were based around each state’s date of significance for the founding of the colony.
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Starting the New Zealand RSA
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Many men who had been invalided back to New Zealand after the Gallipoli campaign found adjusting to civilian life difficult. Those without family support found themselves with little income and in some cases were virtually homeless once they were discharged from the Army. It was not long before a group formed to improve the lot of returned serviceman. In this recording from 1966, radio broadcaster Neville Webber interviews two World War I veterans, Gilbert Lawrence and Ernie Golding, who helped form the Returned Soldiers’ Association (RSA) in Wellington in early 1916.
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Marking the first Anzac Day in London
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In April 1916, a year after the Anzac landings at Gallipoli, the first anniversary of the battle was observed in Australia, New Zealand and Britain. A grand memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey in London, attended by King George V and Queen Mary. Hundreds of New Zealand and Australian military personnel marched through the streets to the Abbey to attend the service.
Among them was Sydney-born Dr Agnes Bennett, who had been working in Egyptian hospitals treating the wounded from Gallipoli. Some 40 years later she recalled the experience in this excerpt from a radio ‘talk.’
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Poor old soldiers, both two-legged and four-legged
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Horses were among the unsung heroes of the NZEF during World War One. Ten thousand horses were sent overseas over the course of the war. They were used by mounted troops and officers, and for transporting equipment and artillery. The life of a horse in the army was a tough one. They endured brutal conditions travelling to the front and at the battlefield, and only a handful returned back to New Zealand, as Percy Lowndes recalled in 1969.
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Swimming with Birdie at Gallipoli
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As the weather warmed up on Gallipoli during the summer of 1915, new problems plagued the Australian and New Zealand forces. The increased heat worsened the men’s thirsts and a huge number of flies swarmed over the battlefield, due to the many unburied corpses and shallowly-dug latrines, or field toilets. A refreshing swim in the Mediterranean was the only relief, as New Zealander Bertie Cooksley recalls.
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Fundraising for the war effort, Sydney
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Various wartime fundraising and recruitment activities are seen in this film from about 1916, shot from outside the General Post Office in Martin Place, Sydney, after rain. In pavilion-style tent stalls, Red Cross workers sell ribbons, flowers and other produce. The top-hatted Governor of NSW, Sir Gerald Strickland, walks among the crowds. Many AIF troops are shown in this clip, their humour in evidence in a shot of a young male civilian being ‘accosted’ and compelled to enlist, while others pretend to take his measurements for a uniform.