GateWAy Blog

Albany’s Anzac connection

The first and second Anzac convoys left from Albany. These convoys consisted of troop ships from all over Australia, as well as New Zealand, and included the flagship of the China Station and a Japanese battle cruiser as part of the naval escort.

Their final view of Australia

Albany was chosen as the rendezvous because it was an important coaling and watering port and the convoy left Albany for Egypt, where the troops would train before being landed at Gallipoli to fight the Turks.

For the thousands of Australian soldiers who died at Gallipolli, this was their last sight of their homeland.

The first Dawn Service

Albany has another strong Anzac connection in that it was where the first dawn service was held. In 1918 a young Anglican chaplain, Padre Arthur Ernest White, who served as chaplain with the 44th Battalion AIF and was gassed and wounded at the Western Front, celebrated a Requiem Mass for the Battle Dead at the alter of St. John’s, Albany.

Mount Clarence

After the service he and some members of the congregation climbed to the

Anzac Memorial

summit of Mount Clarence. It was from this viewpoint that the people of Albany had gathered in 1914 to look at the great convoy of ships that had gathered in the Sound to carry the men to Egypt.

As Padre White looked over Princess Royal Harbour, he is reported to have said ‘Albany was the last sight of land our troops saw of Australia. Perhaps we should commemorate them this way every Anzac Day.’

The start of a tradition

Pardre White

In 1929, Padre White was appointed Rector of Albany and decided to mark the next Anzac Day by celebrating a Dawn Eucharist. On April 25th, 1930, some parishioners who attended this 6 am service then accompanied their rector to the nearby war memorial, where he placed a wreath on behalf of the parish.

They then followed him up Mt Clarence to wait for a boatman to lay a wreath in the water at the entrance of the harbour where it would drift out into King George Sound. As it was laid, Padre White (pictured this page) said these words, ‘As the sun riseth and goeth down, we will remember them’.

When he entered the details in the church service register, he wrote, ‘First Dawn Service held in Australia.’

The Ataturk Channel

Albany has commemorated our Anzac links by naming the channel, between King George Sound and Princess Royal Harbour, Ataturk Channel. There is also a large statue of Ataturk looking out over the channel.

And today …

Two services are held in Albany for Anzac Day. The Dawn Service up on Mt Clarence at the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial starts at 5.30 am and the street parade and Anzac Day Memorial Service, held at Albany’s Anzac Peace Park on the foreshore.

Source: Albany Historical Society

Desert Mounted Corps Memorial

The Desert Mounted Corps Memorial stands near the summit of Mt Clarence. The memorial is a 9-metre bronze statue of an Australian mounted soldier assisting a New Zealand soldier whose horse has been wounded. The memorial was originally erected at Port Said, Egypt. In 1916, Brigadier General J.R. Royston, commander of the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade, suggested that a memorial be erected at Port Said in honour of Australian and New Zealand mounted soldiers killed in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. The memorial was funded by the Australian Government, the New Zealand Government and surviving mounted soldiers. It was erected in Port Said in 1932 and was inscribed to the memory of members of the Australian Light Horse, New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and Imperial Camel Corps (all part of the Desert Mounted Corps) who died in Egypt, Palestine and Syria between 1916 and 1918. The memorial was damaged in anti-British riots during the Suez Crisis of 1956. In 1959, the United Arab Republic agreed to send the memorial back to Australia and it arrived in Albany in 1960. A copy of the statue was made and this was erected on Mt Clarence in 1964.^[4]

Albany is associated with the Desert Mounted Corps in that the mounted troops and the rest of the first detachment of the Australian Imperial Force and the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (later know collectively as ANZACs) left Albany in a convoy of ships in November 1914 to join World War I.

The Ode

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.