On Tuesday 25 April, Hamilton community will once again gather in silence to honour fallen and returned servicemen and women – a tradition passed down the generations for more than 100 years.
Hamilton’s 2023 Anzac Day commemorations at the Memorial Park Cenotaph will begin with the dawn service at 6am, followed by the civic service at 10am.
Event and parade details are available at hamilton.govt.nz/anzacday – both events will go ahead regardless of weather conditions.
Large screens will be placed at each end of Memorial Park so people are able to easily see and hear the commemorations from around the park. The services will also be livestreamed so those who cannot attend in person can watch from home.
The dawn parade will assemble at the corner of Victoria Street and Anzac Parade at 5.30am for a 5.45am march.
Both services will be MCed by NZ Army Reservist officer Lieutenant Colonel Olly Te Ua. Te Ua was the commanding officer of 3rd/6th Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, the reserve battalion based in NZ, and is now a Maangai Maori representative for Hamilton City Council.
Te Ua’s great-grandfather served at Gallipoli from June to August 1915. In 2018, Te Ua represented New Zealand and the NZ Defence Force as the contingent commander at the Anzac services at Chunuk Bair.
Mayor Paula Southgate, who will speak at the civic service, says sharing the Anzac Day experience is vital to keep our history alive.
“I love to see young people and young families attending Anzac services. Sadly, we now have only a few surviving WWII veterans, so our link to the past lives on through sharing stories.”
The guest speaker at this year’s civic service will be Cadet Warrant Officer Class One Shane Marwood, who was named New Zealand Cadet Forces Cadet of the Year for 2022.
Anzac Day is our national day of remembrance, and observed on 25 April each year. It commemorates those who died serving New Zealand during war and it honours returned servicemen and women, past and present.
– from NewsViews
I was at the Dawn Parade this morning, and I would like to thank Lt Col Te Ua for his reading. Delivered without unnecessary dramatics, it was a powerful statement of the futility and waste of war. It sounded exactly as though the author was speaking to himself as he wrote in his diary of his terrible introduction to Gallipoli, which made it especially real.