anzac_revisted

When historian Dr Jonathan King interviewed the last 10 Anzac Diggers he became so inspired he vowed to organise a pilgrimage to Gallipoli in their honour. That pilgrimage was scheduled to depart from Sydney on April 20th. It will commence the 83th Anniversary of the end of WWI with a Dawn Service at Gallipoli on Anzac Day. The fourteen day tour includes visits to Istanbul, Bursa, Canakkale, Gallipoli, Kusadasi, Pamukale, Antalya and Ankara.

Freecall 1800-639-303

The service was held on that sacred spot where Australian Diggers landed to start "the war to end all wars". It will be a highly charged service because Anzac Day this year also marks the 81st Anniversary of the Australian victory in France at Villers-Bretonneux - the battle that won WWI. Although the Australian pilgrims will remember the 8009 Diggers killed at Gallilopi, they wil also give thanks for the thousands of soldiers who graduated from Gallilopi to fight in France.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the poppy drew attention as the mysterious flower that bloomed over the graves of fallen soldiers.

In the 20th Century, the poppy again was widely noticed after soils in France and Belgium became rich in lime from rubble during the First World War. The little red flowers flourished around the graves of the war dead as they had 100 years earlier.

In 1915, Guelph, Ontario native John McCrae, a doctor serving with the Canadian Forces Artillery, recorded this phenomenon in his famous poem In Flanders Fields.

Two days before the Armistice, Moina Michael, an American woman from Athens, Georgia, read the McCrae poem and was inspired to wear a poppy year-round in memory of the war dead.