 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||
|
remembrance |
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
OVERSEAS
Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery,
|
||||||||||||||
|
 |
| Port Moresby (Bomana) War Cemetery, after the Dawn Service, 25 April 2002 |
The large attendance of over 450 visitors to Hellfire Pass demonstrates the growing awareness by the international public of the Dawn and Commemoration Services on Anzac day each year.
A temporary cairn, on which a cross was mounted, was well received by visitors and provided a background for the service participants. A roped passageway directed visitors to the area where the service was held. Wreaths were laid by the Governor General of New Zealand, Her Excellency Dame Silvia Cartwright and the Australian Ambassador to Thailand, His Excellency Miles Kupa. The service included a catafalque party, under the command of Major Ian Barnes.
Oil-fired torches were redesigned to provide better lighting. Buses transported the elderly and incapacitated to and from the lower pathway. Assistance was also provided by Thai Military staff to those negotiating the area. Programs and candles were handed to visitors as they entered the Cutting and a newly purchased sound system ensured all visitors could hear the service clearly.
A later service was held at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, where over 600 visitors attended. An ex-prisoner-of-war was invited to speak at the service and his poignant speech touched all those who attended.
This year, a former Director of War Graves, AVM Alan Heggan ao, led a party to Thailand. One of the main objectives of the visit was to attend Anzac Day ceremonies at Hellfire Pass and Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.
Alan advised that the Anzac Day Dawn Service at Hellfire Pass and the ceremony at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery were both extremely well conducted and strongly attended. The Australian Defence Staff at the Australian Embassy, the soldiers from Butterworth and the staff at both Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum and Kanchanaburi War Cemetery performed superbly. The innovation by the Museum staff of providing bamboo-mounted candles for people to read their programs and mounting bamboo oil lamps along the rock walls of the Cutting was very effective and much appreciated by those in attendance.
Anzac Day was observed in Sabah, East Malaysia, with a very moving service held at the Sandakan Memorial Park. The service, led by historian and author, Lynette Silver, was conducted entirely by a group of relatives representing some of the 2,500 Australian and British prisoners of war who died at Sandakan, Ranau or on one of the three death marches. The group, who assembled at the Park shortly after dawn, was joined by Mr Tey, curator of the CWGC Labuan War Cemetery, several Australian tourists and locals. Also attending were Mr Nic Brown, Australian Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia and Colonel Roger Little, Senior Defence Adviser, British High Commission, Malaysia, both of whom, accompanied by their wives, had travelled from Kuala Lumpur to participate in the service.
Recognising the importance of this event, which has been held each year since 1999, when the Park, administered by OAWG, was opened, two flagpoles were installed to flank the memorial stone. They were used for the first time at this year’s service.
|
 |
| Anzac Day Service, Sandakan Memorial Park, Malaysia |
Today I received your letter informing me of the official memorial for my dear Don’s grave has been erected. I would like to express to you and all concerned on behalf of my family and myself our most grateful thanks. The tears are flowing but I’m so happy to know after all these years all he suffered before he died at the age of 78 years was all worth-while. I am 94 years of age, my eyesight is not as good as it was, however I just had to write, not phone. Thank you one and all.
From a Japanese student…
Before I study about Thai–Burma Railway
I didn’t know about that. When I was from Junior school to high
school I had no chance to study about that. There is no write about
Thai–Burma Railway in school book. I knew about it then I was
shocked. I watched many pictures in museum. That picture shocked me.
That picture was drew by who had been prisoner. He drew prisoner’s
life. That is awful. I walked at trace of railway. When I watched Hellfire
Pass, I felt sad. Many people died here. I couldn’t believe that
Hellfire Pass was made by manpower. I will come back to Japan and I
have to study about railway and I have to think about that.
A most fitting Memorial to the men who toiled, suffered and died there, at Ranau and in the jungles between; and to the civilians who paid so dearly for their efforts to assist the Australian and British Prisoners of War. It is to be hoped that many Australians will visit, learn and reflect as they now do at Gallipoli and Kokoda and that they too may experience the quiet calmness, the feeling that one does not walk quite alone in Sandakan Memorial Park, Sabah.
PREVIOUS
NEXT 
