Royal Australian Navy Commander Stephen Hughes reflected on a century of service at the Batemans Bay Anzac Day mid-morning ceremony.
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I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet. I would like to pay my respects to the Elders past and present and I would like to extend my respect to the Indigenous Australian servicemen and women who have served our nation in time of war and peace.
Mr Brian Wheeler, President Batemans Bay Returned and Services League of Australia; Mayor Liz Innes, Eurobodalla Shire Council, the Honourable Andrew Constance, Member for Bega; distinguished guest, veterans, serving members, ladies and gentlemen.
In the centenary of ANZAC, this year marks several significant anniversaries in Australia’s military history. Notably, a hundred years ago in 1917, we remember the World War I battle of Beersheba that involved the famous cavalry charge of the Australian Light Horse and the horrific battles on the Western Front. 75 years ago in World War II, 1942 saw the fall of Singapore and Malaysia. Australia come under direct attack with the bombing of Darwin and the submarine attacks in Sydney Harbour. 1942 also is remembered for the Battle of the Coral Sea and the battles at Milne Bay and the Kakoda Trail in New Guinea, a turning point for the war in the Pacific.
The Centenary of Anzac provides all Australians with an opportunity to commemorate more than a century of service by Australian servicemen and women. We remember and reflect upon the service and sacrifice of our past and current servicemen and women, and to honour more than 102,000 who have given their lives for our nation.
In the fading daylight of 31 October 1917, the charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade captured the town of Beersheba. The capture of Beersheba enabled British Empire forces to break the Ottoman line near Gaza and advance into Levant. It also provided access to crucial water supplies. Of the 800 Light Horseman and their mounts, 31 men were killed, 46 wounded as well as 70 horses killed and more than 60 wounded.
In Europe, March 1917 saw the German army withdraw to the heavily defended Hindenburg Line. Australian forces would suffer heavy losses in the months to follow. The Australian Divisions fought in the battles of Bullecourt, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde and Passchendaele. A century ago in 1917 Australia suffered 76,836 casualties in battles across the Western Front in France and Belgium.
For the Royal Australian Navy, 75 years ago, 1942 holds special significance as being the darkest year in the history of the Royal Australian Navy.
By the end of 1942, HMA Ships Perth, Yarra, Kuttabul, Canberra, Vampire, Voyager, Nestor and Armidale, together with more than 600 men, had all joined the growing list of RAN wartime losses in a year during which there was little to celebrate.
For Australia’s population at that time, the year began with a growing sense of trepidation as war spread to the Asia Pacific following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The war that had begun in Europe two years earlier had become a truly global conflict.
The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 created genuine concern throughout Australia. The Japanese forces had gained momentum southwards, and soon Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies had fallen.
Never in Australia’s short, modern history had our shores been under a more immediate threat.
Those concerns were realised on 19 February 1942, when Darwin suffered its first Japanese air raids. The two air raids that day killed 235 people and wounded a further 300 to 400—the war had arrived on Australia’s doorstep.
On the night of 28 February 1942, HMAS Perth, alongside American cruiser USS Houston, was sunk with 353 crew following a fierce sea battle against the Imperial Japanese Navy off the northwest tip of Java in Indonesia—where the wrecks remain today.
It was not long before units of the Australian and United States navies were in action in the Coral Sea, thwarting Japanese attempts to invade Port Moresby by sea.
That battle in May 1942, between the US and Japanese carrier fleets, raged for three days. It was the first great naval action fought between aircraft carriers.
The Battle of the Coral Sea was significant as a strategic victory for the Allies. It marked the closest approach of hostile naval forces in strength to our coastline, it broke the long series of Japanese victories, and it showed that the Imperial Japanese Navy could be defeated.
Allied success in the Battle of the Coral Sea had tactical implications for the Japanese forces, which were then driven to make a landward approach from the northern coast of New Guinea to capture Port Moresby.
For Australians, the result would be the epic and bitterly fought struggle on land which began at Kokoda. The efforts of Australian troops at Milne Bay and the Kakoda Trail saved Australia from imminent invasion. More than 600 Australians died and 1,700 were wounded on the Kakoda trail. These actions eventually drove the Japanese completely out of New Guinea in 1943.
Closer to home, three Japanese midget submarines attacked Sydney Harbour in May – June 1942. A torpedo fired at the USS Chicago missed and struck HMAS Kuttabul in which 19 Australian and two British sailors died.
Today, 75 years on from the epic battles of 1942, we cherish those
World War Two veterans among us: we honour their lost comrades whose young faces they remember, but who never came home and who we know only from photographs.
The memorials that are the backdrop to our commemorations across the nation remind us of all those who lie far from here who called Australia and this district home. Some lie in battlefield cemeteries, some in jungles and oceans lost with their aircraft. Our sailors are with their ships on the sea floor. But it also reminds us of those who returned and lived out their lives as hard working Australians who married, built new families and modern Australia.
For many of us, those who came home from war were our parents and grandparents. We knew them and loved them all our lives.
Every year on Anzac Day the Last Post sounds for them and for all our veterans, those we knew and those who served and died in service to Australia, in all the wars of the twentieth century and in this century.
We remember them all with pride and gratitude.
LEST WE FORGET
ANZAC Day 2016
Batemans Bay Parade
Commander Stephen Hughes, RAN