The ceremonies in Malta to mark the 90th anniversary of Anzac Day tomorrow will include a Dawn Service at 5:30am and a Service of Remembrance and Wreath Laying Ceremony at 11am.
The Dawn Service, a tradition started in Malta last year, will take place at Mtarfa Military Cemetery, near Ta’ Qali. It will commence at 5:30am tomorrow and be conducted by Fr Guido Schembri from St Dominic’s Priory in Rabat and by the Rev David Morris of St Andrews Scots Church, Valletta.
Following the normal tradition in Malta an ecumenical service and wreath-laying ceremony will be held at 11am at Pieta’ Military Cemetery.
Anzac Day, which commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who fell 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 1. As the troops landed on the beaches of the Peninsula, they were cut down by sustained and concentrated machine-gun fire. There was 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.
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.