What is the origin of the acronym ANZAC?
Why, in World War 1, did so many young Australian men flock to enlistment centres to join the AIF?
Where is Gallipoli?
Answer: Gallipoli is a peninsula of land in western Turkey separating the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles: the site of the costly but unsuccessful campaign by the Allies in the First World War.
Who was the “man with the donkey”?
Answer: John Simpson Kirkpatrick. Better known to Australians as Jack Simpson.
When did the first ANZACs land at ANZAC Cove?
Answer: 4.28am on Sunday 25 April 1915.
What is the Victoria Cross?
Answer: The highest British Commonwealth award for the most conspicuous bravery in the presence of the enemy.
Why does Australia commemorate ANZAC Day on 25 April?
Where is the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier?
Answer: In the Hall of Remembrance at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Who was Albert Jacka?
When did the ANZACs leave Gallipoli?
Answer: 20 December 1915
What is the Menin Gate?
Answer: Menin Gate is a war memorial in Ieper (Ypres), Belgium. This memorial to the missing contains, inside and out, huge panels into which are carved the names of the 54,896 officers and men of the Commonwealth (6,209 Australians) who died in the Ypres Salient area during WW1 and who have no known grave.
Why do the veterans carry banners on ANZAC Day?
Answer: Banners are colourful visual records of the veterans’ units’ insignias, mottos, battle histories and honours which are used as rallying points for ceremonies of significance such as ANZAC Day and other memorial services. Ex-service unit members march behind their banners on ANZAC Day.
Where is Villers-Bretonneux?
Answer: Villers-Bretonneux is a small French village which the ANZACs liberated from the Germans in World War 1. The French were so thankful, they put a sign up in the local school which says “Never forget Australia”. It is still there today. The village commemorates ANZAC Day each year.
Who looks after the graves of the Australian service men and women who are buried in foreign countries?
Answer: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission except for those in Papua New Guinea, Honiara (Solomon Islands) and Norfolk Island which are looked after by the Office of Australian War Graves.
When did World War 1 end?
Answer: At 11.00am on 11 November 1918.
What is the Spirit of ANZAC?
Why is the red poppy a symbol of sacrifice?
Where did Australian nurses serve in World War 1?
Answer: Vladivostok, Burma, India, Persian Gulf, Egypt, Greece, Italy, France and England.
Who wrote the poem In Flanders’ Fields?
Answer: John McCrae
When is the Australian Flag flown at half-mast?
Answer: Flags are flown at half-mast on ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day and as a sign of mourning.
What are the words of the Ode?
Answer:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Why do some soldiers wear emu plumes in their slouch hats?
Where is the Australian War Memorial?
Answer: Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory
When was poisonous gas first used by the Germans in World War 1?
Answer: Gas was first used at the battle of Neuve Chapelle in October 1914 when the Germans fired shrapnel shells in which the lead balls had been treated with an irritant chemical. Their first major use of gas occurred on 22 April 1915 when they released chlorine from pressure cylinders in the Ypres Salient.
What was the Australian Comforts Fund?
Why did the ANZACs wear colour patches on their uniforms?
Where will you find the names of all Australian service men and women who have been killed in wars?
Answer: Their names are recorded on the walls of the cloisters on either side of the Pool of Reflection at the Australian War Memorial. This is called the Roll of Honour.
Who was Kemal Ataturk?
Answer: Kemal Ataturk was the Commander of the Turkish 19th Division during the Gallipoli Campaign and the first President of the Turkish Republic from 1924-1938.
What is a Catafalque Party?
Why were Australian soldiers called ‘Diggers’?
Answer: The nickname “Digger” is attributed to the number of ex-gold diggers in the early army units and to the trench digging activities of the Australian soldiers during WW1. The actual origin of the name has been lost in time, however, the Australian soldier is known affectionately round the world as Digger.
Why do organisations like the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland and the Returned & Services League of Australia believe that ANZAC should always be written in upper case letters?
Answer: ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. If Australia is entitled to a capital A then surely New Zealand should be written NZ. The two countries share the ANZAC legend so should be acknowledged equally.
What was the AE2?
Answer: The Australian submarine AE2 played a dramatic role in the Gallipoli campaign, penetrating the ‘Narrows’ and sinking an enemy cruiser. She was eventually scuttled by her crew after suffering battle damage. The crew members were captured and spent the next three and a half years in a Turkish prison camp. Four died while prisoners.
The first Royal Australian Navy battle occurred on 9 November 1914. What ship was sunk by HMAS Sydney during that battle?
Answer: The German cruiser Emden
What was a Maurice Farman Shorthorn?
Answer: A plane flown by pilots of the Australian Flying Corps during WW1.
Did the Royal Australian Air Force take part in WW1?
Answer: No. The RAAF was not established till 1921. In WW1 Australian pilots belonged to the Australian Flying Corps. They wore army uniforms and were part of the AIF.
What is a ‘Waler’?
Answer: A ‘Waler’ is a horse. Short for New South Walers, these sturdy stock horses were used by the Australian Light Horsemen in WW1. These horses could travel faster and farther than those favoured by other countries. They drank and ate less, rarely collapsed and recovered quickly. Around 160,000 of these horses were shipped overseas.
In which country did the Australians do their training before embarking on the ships that transported them to Gallipoli?
Answer: Egypt
What is the origin of the Rising Sun Badge?
What were some of the names Simpson gave to his donkeys?
Answer: Murphy, Abdul and even Queen Elizabeth but his favourite name was Duffy.
What was the name of the only Australian pilot to be awarded a Victoria Cross in WW1?
Answer: Lt Frank McNamara
What is Bully Beef?
Answer: Bully Beef is the name of a canned meat given to soldiers in the field. In WW1 the ANZACs filled the empty cans with nails, bits of metal and gunpowder to make ‘Bully Beef Bombs’.
How many ANZACs were killed on the first day of the Gallipoli battle, 25 April 1915?
Answer: 2000
When was the ‘Unknown Soldier’ buried in the Australian War Memorial? In which war and where was he killed?
Answer: 11 November 1993. He was killed in France in WW1. His remains were exhumed from a military cemetery in France. He was one of the 23,000 Australian soldiers killed in the war to have no known grave. Except for their nationality, they could not be identified, and were buried beneath headstones bearing the words “An Australian soldier of the Great War, known unto God”.