A BEAUTIFUL ocean backdrop was the setting for Bermagui's main Anzac Day service for 2015.
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Aside from the ocean, one of the highlights was the C130 Hercules which swooped overhead low and loud, resulting in several exclamations from the crowd.
The service itself attracted a large audience, with about 600 people gathering around the war memorial on the Bermagui headland overlooking Horseshoe Beach.
The march was led by four members of the 7th Bemboka Light Horse Troop, had a contingent of Bermagui Public School pupils and a band which was carried on a trailer drawn by a car.
After an introduction by Bermagui RSL sub-branch member Paul Davison, sub-branch president Neville Staehr gave the prologue, noting the Anzac Centenary.
“We are here today to honour all Australians who served our country in times of conflict,” Mr Staehr said.
He said the qualities of the original Anzacs can be seen in Australian soldiers in other conflicts after World War 1.
Speaker at the service Commander Lewis Gaha joined the navy in 1975, was deployed to Baghdad in 2008 and awarded the OAM in 2014.
He talked about the history of Gallipoli, noting the men were all volunteers who were trying to follow orders and take the ridges around Gallipoli.
“They were the bravest of young men, but almost all were inexperienced soldiers,” Commander Gaha said.
He also spoke about the important role female nurses played in WW1 and how they had been relatively unacknowledged until recently, despite many making the ultimate sacrifice themselves.
Bermagui Public pupils Tia Bismire and Ryan Holdsworth read the Anzac remembrances with the poems “In Flanders Fields” and “We Shall Keep The Faith”.
The pupils, along with their relieving principal Brendan Constable, presented a book their class had researched to the Bermagui RSL titled “Bermagui Citizens who served in World War 1”.
A group of Bermagui Public pupils then read the names of the 67 people from the Bermagui district who served in WW1 and whose biographies were in their book, stating if they were killed or wounded.