Anzac Day faithful turn out in force for civic service despite rain

Josephine Seymour, Roly Ellis, president of the Dannevirke and Districts RSA, and Honorary Colonel (Rtd) Ray Seymour, MBE, 1st Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment.

We can learn from the mistakes of so many deaths in World War I, Lieutenant Colonel Aidan Shattock, guest speaker at the Dannevirke civic Anzac Day service, says.

Colonel Shattock is commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment which was on parade at the Dannevirke service.

"Those young men who sailed from New Zealand could never fathom what lay ahead. They were volunteers answering the Empire's call in a time of need," he said.

"A soldier wrote after landing at Gallipoli that it 'was bloody rough country for infantry'.

"Of those who served New Zealand 16,697 never saw their homes again, 507 were killed in training and 1000 died a year after the war's end.

"One in three families were affected by this war. And those who returned bore the scars and mental trauma of war."

Colonel Shattock said the pain of separation and loss was still the same for those who served now as it was a century ago and as a community we needed to support those in our defence forces today, who were no different to those who had served before.

"Those who have served will always be the sons of New Zealand."

Dannevirke's Liz Edwards was emotional as she remembered her father, a medic who served at Passchendaele.

"He came home, but what we didn't realise at the time was how shell-shocked he was," she said.

After the Dannevirke Anzac service, Liz was heading to Pongaroa for the service there as her father had signed up while working in Pongaroa.

Despite the rain in Dannevirke, Doreen McGibbon, 94, and her grandson Johnny braved the weather for the civic service.

"I was in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC)," she said. "But as I was boarding my ship to go overseas, just as I was going up the gangplank, news came that the war was over."