ANZAC DAY 2006

[phil82]

....just a suggestion, but written warnings or letters to parents are much more effective if written in clear concise English.

"All though [although] you [you're] intent is [to] talk positively about the Air Training Corps, you are doing damage to 30SQN[.] I have received now [now is superflous] numerous complaints both from Military and other website hosts. You are here by [hereby] warned and I will talk to you and posibly [possibly]your parents.

I would have thought that whatever the problem you are drawing attention to, doing so on a public web-site is hardly the way to go!

[baboon]

ya know you officers will organise the dawn parade, you dont have to

[rnzafhusband]

LOL ;D How funny is the "warning" from the 30Sqn "Unit Commander".... It almost makes me believe what the "real" airmen say about ATC "officers"..... its got to be a joke.... surely? ;D

[dpdouglas]

Well i don't mean to put the Squadron or ATC or NZCF in to disrepute but I do believe in freedom to speak but also believe in safe use of the internet. In saying so, Sir i do believe that this forum and 4 squadron guestbook were the only two forums that I have ever been on so as far as military personnel getting involved i don't understand but other than that i agree.

[dpdouglas]

Also last years Dawn service saw 6 30 squadron cadets,officers and NCOs whcih i think in my opinion appauling. Big whoop if you have to wake up early its one day of the year, come on we need more people and we need to show more respect.

[Dave Homewood]

Hear hear Darryn - Anzac Day should be a compulsory parade for ATC, and other cadets groups.

As neither of my grandfathers served in WWII (apart from in the HG, they both were in reserved occupations), Anzac Day has meant little to Mum or Dad, and so I didn't grow up with the tradition. It was just a day off school when i was a kid. But I went along to my first Dawn Parade at age 14 of my own accord, and was so moved and impressed I have tried to get along to at least one of the two parades each year since. That first one in 1985 was probably the spark that got me interested in military history, and started me reading about the wars we commemorate. It also helped intstill a huge respect for the greatest generation, our WWII veterans.

[yaya]

since i was the age of 4 my grandma would always take me to the dawn parades and then joining ATC ive done the dawn service in Warkworth. Personally i like the dawn one better that the 10 or 11am one. because i feel more passionate about it, to me i have more appriation (sorry cant spell), and being able to watch the sunrise, being with the wwII and getting to talk to them, and actually being able to see the different gernerations getting up and having respect.

[phil82]

One thing I have noted in the last few years, is the increasing numbers of young people attending Dawn Services, and it's encouraging.I'll tell you why I go, and it's not only because of my own 25 years in two Royal Air Forces, but the people I have met in those years and since.In the early years, for example,[1957 when I joined the RAF] there were still many serving airmen, and particularly officers, who had flown operationally, and they were, literally, survivors. I have also been an avid reader since school days, and still am, of factual and autobiographical accounts from all three services. I have met a number of people who are true veterans, but if I give you the true story of one man in particular, a good friend whom I greatly admire, then it will perhaps summarize what it is all about.

Tom is a Scot,lives locally to me, and was a Territorial in the Seaforth Highlanders in 1937, and was promptly called up at the outbreak of WW2. He did parachute and Commando training, and was dropped into France with a bunch of other people in 1942 on the Bruneval Raid,[it's on the Net] which some of you may recall was a bold attempt to steal parts from a German radar. They dropped in at night, stole the bits, and were taken off by boat. There was a book written about the raid, and, I think, a film, and much emphasis was placed on the fact of the RAF radar expert who went with them having to be shot rather than captured by the Germans! I asked Tom about that, and all he said was they were all told "he wasn't to be taken prisoner". On D-Day, Tom , now back with his own regiment, the Seaforths, went ashore at Normandy. Two days later, two of his mates were killed on either side of him, they are buried in Normandy. A week later, his Company Commander, a Major, was killed, and buried where he fell. Remember, these guys were all Scots, and pre-war Territorials, and were like family. A few days later, the new Company Commander approached Tom and asked him to go back and dig up the Major because his wife had asked for the family heirloom ring he was wearing to be sent back to her. She wasn't told he'd been buried wearing it, so they didn't tell her they dug him up. Get Tom sitting comfortably in your best chair, with a glass of good Single Malt, and you can see the hurt in his eyes sixty years after the event. Tom carried on right through to the Rhine, and I once asked him when the realisation struck him that it was all over, and that he might have survived the whole sad story. He said it was when they started taking the surrender in huge numbers of boys as young as 13 wearing men's uniforms. Tom later became a manager with the Bank of Scotland, before emigrating, but he never forgot the guys he left in France. I'm going to France in May and when he gave me three names, I looked them up on the Commonwealth War Graves site, and printed of all the details. I know where they are, and I'm going to take photo's for Tom. I will be doing the same for two of my wife's father's brother's, both of whom died in France within six months of joining up in NZ. So, to my mind, ANZAC Day, and the Dawn Service in particular, is vitally important so that we who are left can, literally, remember that we are saluting a couple of generations of men the like of which we may never see again.

[Dave Homewood]

Wow, what a great hero Tom is. Thanks for sharing that story Colin.

I find the thing that affects your thinking the most about WWII veterans is not reading books or watching documentaries, but doing as you and I have done by meeting the people in person, sitting down with them and listening, and asking them questions. You realise a lot more about what it was like through such personal contact. Sadly we will soon no longer have the opportunity. The WWII generation were the greatest New Zealand has produced in my opinion, and the same goes for Britain and many other countries. And no, I doubt we shall see their likes again.