The Echuca Federal Band, a cornerstone of Anzac Day marches since the tradition began, has been so depleted by everything from a broken leg to illness and holidays, it won’t be able to muster a viable complement of musicians for Tuesday.
But that won’t stop the March going ahead, with both sides of the twin towns coming together for one of the annual Anzac Day highlights.
Echuca’s Anzac Day will start at 6pm the night before, when the Mal Whyte Rovers take up station for a 12-hour vigil at the Echuca Cenotaph, ahead of the Dawn Service, which begins there at 5.55am (with participants asked to be assembled by 5.45am).
The Echuca Scouts will be firing up their Gunfire Breakfast of bacon and egg rolls from 6am.
At Moama, the Dawn Service also begins at 5.55am at the Soundshell Cenotaph, with its Gunfire Breakfast following immediately afterwards at the Moama RSL club.
Moama RSL sub-branch president Ken Jones said its commemorative service started at 9am at the Cenotaph and would be followed by a lunch service.
“We will have two-up from 1pm to 4pm at Poppies on Merool, you can’t beat a bit of the old ‘come in spinner’,” Mr Jones said.
“And we will be screening the Collingwood v Essendon Anzac Day game on the big screens at the RSL club as well.
“In the morning, the Vietnam veterans will also be heading across the Murray to join the Echuca Anzac Day March.”
In Echuca, RSL sub-branch president Denis Shanahan said the marchers would assemble at 10.30am in Hare St and step off at 10.40am, marching to the Cenotaph and Memorial Park on the corner of Hare and Heygarth Sts.
Where the main Anzac Day Service begins at 11am.
Mr Shanahan said the marchers would also be joined by members of the CFA, football clubs and Probus clubs.
“We have also extended an open invitation to the much younger veterans of some of Australia’s more recent conflicts, from Timor to the Middle East, and hope to see as many of them as possible turn up to join us,” he said.
“We anticipate the main service being finished about 12.15pm, after which we also have two-up, which will be held across the road at the American Hotel.”
Both services in the twin towns have a similar theme this year, with Campaspe Shire Mayor Rob Amos the guest speaker in Echuca and Murray River Council Mayor Chris Bilkey doing the same in Moama.
Cr Amos said he would be discussing his family’s military history, along with his own service in the Army Reserve.
“I will also be paying tribute to the Echuca cadets, who every year provide the Catafalque Party for the Anzac Day Service and do such an outstanding job,” he says.
“It always brings back memories of my own work in Catafalque Parties as a soldier, when I think back to the amount of time spent polishing boots, buckles and making sure uniform creases were razor sharp.
“I am a bit humbled by the invitation. This is such a significant part of the Australian story, and while I have been involved in other services from my army days to representing council and the CFA, this is my first time in front of the microphone.”
Cr Bilkey said he would be paying tribute to Australia’s forgotten soldiers.
He says the Korean War, which started in 1950, ran for three bitter and bloody years before an armistice was signed in July 1953, making this year the 70th anniversary.
“This is a war which saw 22 countries unite under the United Nations banner to help defend South Korea after it was attacked by the North,” Cr Bilkey said.
“That included Australia, and to have come so close after the end of World War II, and with the growing threat of the Cold War, it has never ceased to amaze me how it has simply slipped from the public consciousness.
“The Australians who fought, and died, there did remarkable things — and quite a few of them had done the same years earlier in World War II.
“In April, 1951, the Battle of Kapyong saw the Australians and Canadians turn back a massive push by the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army after it had broken through Allied lines and then Operation Commando, the Battle of Maryang-san, just three months later, was probably our biggest fight of the war — and I doubt many people in Echuca-Moama have ever heard of it.
“Yet when the shooting was over, 20 Australians were dead and 89 were wounded. Those are the people I will be honouring on Tuesday.”
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