Australians Gather In their Thousands at Dawn Services to Commemorate Anzac Day

A general view of the crowd during the Anzac Day Dawn Service at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, Tuesday, April 25, 2023. AAP Image/Diego Fedele

Australians have turned out in their tens of thousands around the country and overseas to attend solemn ANZAC Day dawn services to commemorate the 108th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli and honour the 1.5 million military personnel who have served the country in conflicts, war and peacekeeping operations.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, at the dawn service in Canberra, said that Australians gather at the services because it reminds Australians of the troops from the Australian New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) launching a doomed attack on the cliff-lined shores of Gallipoli in World War I “in the gap between moonset and sunrise.”