The dawn service, held for the first time in Malta, was conducted by Fr Guido Schembri from St Dominic’s Priory in Rabat and the Rev. David Morris of St Andrew’s Scots Church in Valletta.

Participating in the service and laying wreaths were Australian high commissioner Richard Palk, New Zealand honorary consul general Jill Camilleri, British high commissioner Vincent Fean and Armed Forces of Malta commander Brigadier Carmel Vassallo.

The first official dawn service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927 and since then dawn services have been held every year. Many thousands attend Anzac Day dawn services in towns throughout Australia and New Zealand and they are held throughout the world – from the Australian war memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London, to Hellfire Pass on the former infamous Thai-Burma railroad in Thailand.

The service and wreath-laying ceremony at Pieta military cemetery, organised by the Australian High Commission in conjunction with the Royal British Legion, was conducted by Mgr Philip Calleja, the Rev. David Morris and Fr Marius Zerafa. Wreaths were laid by President Edward Fenech Adami and representatives of Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, Turkey, the United States of America, the Armed Forces of Malta, the Royal British Legion, the George Cross Island Association, the Emigrants’ Commission, the Friends of Australia Association, the Maltese-Australian Association and the Maltese Australian Chamber of Commerce and Culture.

Anzac Day, which commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who have fallen in armed conflicts, is commemorated on the anniversary of the first landings at Gallipoli in 1915 by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac), as part of an imperial expeditionary force.

The battle by allied soldiers to capture and hold the Gallipoli Peninsula was one of the hardest fought but ultimately futile campaigns of World War I. As the troops landed on the beaches of the peninsula, they were cut down by sustained and concentrated machine-gun fire. There was very heavy loss of life on both sides during the nine-month campaign that followed.

Some 50,000 members of the Australian imperial forces, from a total Australian population of just five million, served at Gallipoli and more than 8,700 Australians and 2,700 New Zealanders were killed during the campaign.

This heavy toll of dead and wounded is carved deeply into the psyche of the people of Australia and New Zealand, and 25 April has been set aside in both countries as a day of remembrance. The significance and solemnity of Anzac Day has strengthened over the years as the community remembers all those who have laid down their lives in the many conflicts fought by Anzacs since the Gallipoli campaign.

Malta was closely associated with the Anzacs from the beginning. Many of the original Anzacs who were wounded at Gallipoli were evacuated to Malta for treatment. History remembers Malta as “the nurse of the Mediterranean”. However, for 308 Anzacs, the island became a permanent resting place, as there are 229 Australian and 79 New Zealand war graves in Malta.