THERE was no sugar coating on Anzac Day of the military and personal disaster that was the Gallipoli campaign.
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The silent crowd gathered around the cenotaph in Lithgow’s Queen Elizabeth Park was told the Dardanelles campaign had been a planning blunder from its very conception.
It was never going to succeed and thousands of Australians, New Zealanders and troops of allied nations were sent to their death in a futile slaughter.
But the ill conceived campaign was never the point of Anzac Day.
Anzac Day is not an occasion to either glorify victory or condemn failure.
The big crowd across all ages and walks of life in the park testified to the true meaning of Anzac Day — to honour the memory of the men and women who served in all of the wars since federation and to ensure their sacrifices are never forgotten.
April 25 is not all about Gallipoli but on the 100th anniversary of that ill fated expedition the bloodbath in the Dardanelles was always going to get top billing on Anzac Day 2015.
Lithgow RSL sub branch president Ron Murphy told the crowd that while Gallipoli was a military blunder that did not diminish the bravery of the allied troops attempting to drive the Turks off the peninsula.
“There was never any chance of victory,” he said.
“The evacuation was the only well planned operation of the entire Gallipoli campaign,” he said.
“Then many of those who survived Gallipoli went on to four years of hell on the Western Front.”
Mr Murphy said the initial defeat could not diminish the bravery of those who made the supreme sacrifice and who were honoured each Anzac Day.
There were two keynote speakers delivering commemorative addresses at the service, Air Commodore Henrik Ehlers (RAAF) and Captain John Stavridis (RAN).
Air Commodore Ehlers focussed on the campaign by Australia’s fledgling flying corps in World War One.
“You had to be brave just to go up in those rickety aircraft,” he said.
He said it should not go unnoticed that one of the first Australian airmen to die in battle was a Lithgow man, Lieutenant Sydney Ayres, brought down by ground fire over Palestine in 1917.
His name is etched on the warm memorial in Elizabeth Park.
Air Commodore Ehlers spoke of the contribution to the war effort made by regional towns such as Lithgow.
Captain Stavridis spoke generally on the theme of Anzac and particularly on naval campaigns.
He said that on his first visit to Lithgow he could not help noticing the number of streets in the city named after World War One battlegrounds.
Captain Stavridis was particularly impressed to note Lemnos Street.
“Lemnos was the island in the Aegean where my father was born,” he said.
There was another highlight of Anzac Day in Lithgow with a flypast over Elizabeth Park at very low altitude by a Hercules from Richmond RAAF.
Only two other NSW towns were scheduled to be honoured in this manner, Lawson in the Blue Mountains and Finley in the Riverina.