Remembrance Events Centenary of ANZAC 1915 - 2015
Centenary of ANZAC 1915 - 2015 Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL
To Help commemorate the Centenary of ANZAC the Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL has been assisting the Community with their commemorative Projects and Events.
Sunday 19 April 2015
Police ANZAC Memorial Service
President Glen Murray and Vice President Shane Edmonds of the Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL attended the 2015 Police ANZAC Memorial Service at Fort Largs where they laid a wreath on behalf of the Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL.
Sunday 3 May 2015
Service of Intercession and Remembrance of the Fallen - St Bedes Church
The Church service re-enacted the service held 3/5/1915 using the original service sheet 'Diocese of Adelaide: Day of Intercession and Remembrance of the Fallen'. The Church features a large World War One Honour Board with servicemen's names from the area and memorial pictures, the Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL is helping to find Stories / Photos to as part of our WW1 Virtual Honour Board.
The adjacent Church Hall was set up with a military vehicle, military displays and artefacts. Displays were presented by RSL Semaphore, Army Historical Museum, Keswick; Barossa Light Horse Reenactment Group, Fort Glanville Historical Society, State Library of South Australia, Port Adelaide Historical Society, Legacy, Military Vehicles Museum and projects by local school children.
Adopt a Local WW1 Hero About Time: History Festival 2015
St Bede's Anglican Church - Display of local WW1 memorabilia - 200 Military Road, Semaphore Attendees were encouraged to wear fashions of 1915 to the service.
Volunteers Macca, Brian and Ann Manning the BBQ
Media
Marking the Anzac Centenary - Paul Rosenzweig Author/historian at “Thanks Digger”
March 14, 2015 updated May 12, 2015
Semaphore-Port Adelaide RSL
To mark the World War 1 Centenary, the Semaphore and Port Adelaide RSL in Adelaide has created a virtual Honour Board listing the names of over 2,000 local volunteers from the districts of Semaphore, Port Adelaide, Largs Bay, Ethelton, Glanville, Rosewater, Exeter, Peterhead, Queenstown and Alberton. Thanks Digger is contributing a series of detailed biographical profiles to this virtual Honour Board to commemorate previously unrecorded South Australians from the Semaphore-Port Adelaide area who nobly did their duty during the Great War.
One among them was 6195 Corporal Kenneth Whaite McKenzie (1892-1941), a descendant of an old English family which variously went by the names of ‘Wayte’, ‘Weatt’ or ‘Whait’, which can be accurately traced back to Nottinghamshire in the 17th century and then Manchester from about 1797. Kenneth was born in Exeter on Adelaide’s Le Fevre Peninsula in 1892, and was a 23 year old Shipping Clerk working with the Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd in Fremantle when he enlisted in the AIF on 29 September 1915. His records show that he was first assigned to the Australian Army Medical Corps, but later qualified as a Motorised Transport Driver and served with the 4th Australian Mechanical Transport Company. He was promoted to Corporal, awarded the Belgian Croix De Guerre for ‘conspicuous services rendered’ during the war, and returned to Australia in 1919. His records show that in 1915 he embarked for duty with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, but he disembarked at Suez and did not go on immediately to Gallipoli.
Another entry however, shows that McKenzie embarked at Alexandria on 4 December 1915, and on 9 December he joined the 4th Field Ambulance at ‘Walden Grove’. Considering that the Gallipoli campaign was all but finished by then, without further research it might reasonably have been assumed that he had transferred to a depot in England. But ‘Walden Grove’ was in fact the 4th Field Ambulance’s camp, hospital and medical dressing station on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The 4th Field Ambulance had originally established a camp on the beach at Anzac Cove, but during the August offensives a new camp was established at Walden Point – this site was originally spelt ‘Waldren’s Point’, and was supposedly named after a New Zealand machine-gun officer who had been killed at the Apex on 8 August. Over time the name was modified to ‘Walden Grove’. Private McKenzie’s records show that he returned to Alexandria on 18 December, well after the 4th Field Ambulance had already evacuated from the Peninsula. The fact that Ken McKenzie arrived so late and then left Gallipoli four days after his unit suggests that he had gone there specifically to assist with the unit’s packing and evacuation (although the tents were left standing to give the appearance of normality to the Turks), to see off any wounded and stragglers over the next few days, and to remain behind as a stretcher-bearer with the rear party in case a determined rearguard action had to be fought. But for this close inspection of dates and place names, it might never have been known that Ken McKenzie spent a little over a week at Gallipoli – supporting the silent withdrawal of the Anzacs.
Rosenzweig, P A (2015) ‘6195 Corporal Kenneth Whaite McKenzie CdeG (1892-1941)’:
http://semaphoreportadelaidersl.com.au/index.php/remembrance/local-heroes-ww1/127-mckenzie-Kenneth-whaite
The Centenary of Anzac
For the 2015 Centenary of Anzac Dawn Service, in South Australia the Semaphore-Port Adelaide RSL arranged for a ‘re-enactor’ to dress in period uniform. This is how “Thanks Digger” interpreted that morning:
This is the spirit of the World War 1 Digger, solemnly standing guard at the Semaphore War Memorial which was erected and dedicated in 1925. For most South Australians who served overseas in the Great War, it was at Port Adelaide that they embarked for overseas service.
Like so many ‘Digger statue’ war memorials, he is an Australian Imperial Force infantry soldier holding his rifle at the shoulder – the war is over and he can rest, but not relax: he remains alert and vigilant in case his country needs him again.
He reflects on the memory of his mates who did not return, while at the same time adopting a posture of vigilance, as a sentry ready to defend the approaches to Australia. He represents the soldier from the first verse of Laurence Binyon’s poem, “For the Fallen”:
They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.Then at the Centenary Dawn Service at the Semaphore War Memorial on 25 April 2015, the spirit of the World War 1 Digger met his WW2 counterpart – 27th Battalion Association stalwart SX39980 Private Fred Best, who returned from World War 2.
The spirit of the World War 1 Digger is as depicted in the second verse of Laurence Binyon’s poem, “For the Fallen” which has become adopted as the Ode of Remembrance. The Digger has not grown old, as we who returned from the wars and overseas missions have grown old. Age has not wearied him. He thanked his WW2 counterpart for continuing the tradition of service in defence of Australia, and for actively keeping his memory alive.
Fred, a World War 2 survivor, thanked the Digger for his service in the Great War, and renewed his promise that he will continue to honour his sacrifice – at the going down of the sun and in the morning, he will ensure that we remember them.
Lest we Forget
Full Article http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/marking-anzac-centenary-1915-2015-paul-rosenzweig
