A Visit to the Australian War Memorial

Today I visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. In exactly one month it will be 100 years since the ANZAC forces (and the English, French and other forces serving with the British) landed in the Dardanelles (i.e. Gallipoli).

I happened to arrive when a free guided tour was about to start.  As I had never been on one before I decided to join in.  It was supposed to last for 90 minutes, but it was closer to 2 hours by the time our guide finished.  At 11am the last post is sounded, which was 30 minutes into our tour, and I confess I got rather choked up.  The tour was excellent, and (as always) the war memorial was very moving.  Because we are going on a Western Front battlefields tour (where my grandfather served) in July, and because at the moment the focus is on Gallipoli and the First World War, I spent most of my time (after the tour) in the WW1 galleries.  These have been newly refurbished, but still feature the wonderful dioramas.

A picture speaks a thousand words, so I will fill this post with photos.

The Memorial Hall and Rolls of Honour Galleries

The WW1 Roll of Honour,
commemorating 62,000 Australian dead

The Unknown Soldier
"He is all of them. And he is one of us"

One of the boats from the Gallipoli landing

Lone Pine Diorama

Somme Winter Diorama

Somme Winter Diorama

Bullecourt Diorama

Ypres Diorama

When the Australians liberated Villiers-Bretonneux they
renamed all the German-named streets