Nation pauses for Remembrance Day
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REMEMBRANCE DAY: Australians will pause for a minute’s silence at 11am today to mark the 97th anniversary of the Armistice which ended the First World War (1914–18).
Residents and friends of RSL LifeCare Thomas Eccles Gardens in Yass will have a quiet ceremony to mark the occasion.
A national ceremony will be held at the Australian War Memorial from 10.30am with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, His Royal Highness Prince Charles and Her Royal Highness Duchess Camilla of Cornwall in Canberra.
At 11 am on 11 November 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years continuous warfare.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month attained a special significance in the post-war years. The moment when hostilities ceased on the Western Front became universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the war. This first modern world conflict had brought about the mobilisation of over 70 million people and left between 9 and 13 million dead, perhaps as many as one-third of them with no known grave. The allied nations chose this day and time for the commemoration of their war dead.
In Australia on the 75th anniversary of the armistice in 1993 Remembrance Day ceremonies again became the focus of national attention. The remains of an unknown Australian soldier, exhumed from a First World War military cemetery in France, were ceremonially entombed in the Memorial’s Hall of Memory.
Remembrance Day ceremonies were conducted simultaneously in towns and cities all over the country, culminating at the moment of burial at 11 am and coinciding with the traditional two minutes’ silence. This ceremony, which touched a chord across the Australian nation, re-established Remembrance Day as a significant day of commemoration.
Watch the Remembrance Day National Ceremony live on ABC News 24 from 10.30 am today http://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/remembrance/
PHOTO: Australian War Memorial
PHOTO: Australian War Memorial
