ANZAC Day

If you wish to celebrate ANZAC Day the Papanui RSA(Returned Serviceman's Association) 9.10am Parade/Service, Fall in at the Westgate of St James Park, St James Avenue. Public march to the War Memorial in Horner Street to lay wreaths, then onto the Papanui RSA, 55 Bellvue Avenue for Service beginning at 10.00am with a wreath laying after. The Papanui RSA Clubrooms will be open after the service for refreshments.

Dawn Parade is held in the Square at 6am. The service begins at 6:30 when the soldiers finish the parade. 

ANZAC day is a day of remembrance for soldiers killed in war and all returned service men and woman. 
Click the image for more information at NZ history.

Anzac art 1916

The date itself marks the anniversary of the landing of New Zealand and Australian soldiers – the Anzacs – on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. The aim was to capture the Dardanelles, the gateway to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. At the end of the campaign, Gallipoli was still held by its Turkish defenders.

Thousands lost their lives in the Gallipoli campaign: 87,000 Turks, 44,000 men from France and the British Empire, including 8500 Australians. To this day, Australia also marks the events of 25 April. Among the dead were 2721 New Zealanders, almost one in four of those who served on Gallipoli.

It may have led to a military defeat, but for many New Zealanders then and since, the Gallipoli landings meant the beginning of something else – a feeling that New Zealand had a role as a distinct nation, even as it fought on the other side of the world in the name of the British Empire.

Anzac Day was first marked in 1916. The day has gone through many changes since then. The ceremonies that are held at war memorials up and down New Zealand, or in places overseas where New Zealanders gather, remain rich in tradition and ritual befitting a military funeral.  

In military tradition, the Last Post is the bugle call that signifies the end of the day's activities. It is also sounded at military funerals to indicate that the soldier has gone to his final rest and at commemorative services such as ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day.