Ninety Years Since Anzac Landings
This year marks ninety years since the Anzac troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsular and battled the Ottoman Empire — modern Turkey — for nearly nine months with huge casualties on both sides.
The Ministry was involved in a number of initiatives in commemoration on and around Anzac Day this year.
Well-known war historian Ian McGibbon released Gallipoli: a Guide to New Zealand Battlefields and Memorials, a guidebook aimed at helping travellers — including armchair travellers — around the significant sites of Gallipoli. The book combines stories of the battles with maps and photos and easy to follow instructions on how to get to each site.
The Ministry also developed an Anzac website, www.Anzac.govt.nz. This features magnificent, interactive panorama photos of the battlefields and memorials of Gallipoli as well as providing information on Anzac ceremonies, the significance of the day and a fully searchable database of all the New Zealanders who died on the Gallipoli peninsular.
While the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, was in Gallipoli for the ninetieth anniversary commemoration services she opened a walking track built by the Turkish government between Chunuk Bair and the coast. The track follows approximately the route taken by New Zealand troops in the assault on Chunuk Bair in August 1915 and will give visitors a feeling of the nature of the battlegrounds on which so many died.
The London commemoration service in Westminster Abbey was attended by Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Phillip and featured the premier of a new Anzac anthem. Australian musician Alicia Grant collaborated with New Zealand poet Vincent O'Sullivan to put the words of Vincent's poem Homecoming – Te Hokinga Mai to music. The poem was first read at the interment ceremony for the Unknown Warrior, and on Anzac Day was sung by the Abbey Choir.