This editorial first appeared in the Boorowa News on Thursday, April 24, 1957, on the eve of the 43rd anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. One hundred years after that fateful day, we republish this editorial, writer unknown.
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Tomorrow (Friday April 25) is the 43rd anniversary of the Gallipoli landing.
Since that tragic yet glorious day the great writers of succeeding generations have repainted the picture in words that live, so that it is a simple matter even for those who were not there to visualise the scene.
The great artists too have caught and immortalised on canvas the magnificent epic of April 25, 1915.
The poets have taken the word 'Anzac' and have delicately etched it into the hearts of all peoples.
They have made it synonymous with outstanding gallantry and devotion to duty. They have between them placed on record a story of blood and fire and audacious courage such as the world has never saw before or is ever likely to see again.
For on that day a young nation, untried, almost unknown by the older warrior lands, faced and overcame odds of such magnitude that indeed, "all the world wondered".
We all know the story so well by now. Behind them was the sea with boatload after boatload packed with Anzacs following behind those who had found a footing on the shingle beach.
Before them were the perpendicular cliffs, manned by the foe, and hot lead rained from the skies.
How it thrills us again, from 43 years and another two world wars away, to watch their typical native reaction to such a hand dealt out to them. Without panic, hesitation or thought of self they swept forward and up, until the impossible had been accomplished and the summit of those terrible cliffs had been reached.
But in the fullness of our pride as we remember them, we must never lose sight of why they so unselfishly gave their lives. We must remember the words of the soldier poet: "If ye break faith with us who died, we shall not sleep, Though poppies grow in Flanders Field."