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        New Message Board Archives >> 2007 General Board Posts >> ANZAC DAY
        
(Message started by: Turts on Apr 24^th, 2007, 3:48pm)

Title: ANZAC DAY
Post by Turts on Apr 24^th, 2007, 3:48pm

Today, 25th April, is a day we Australians and New Zealanders call ANZAC DAY.

It is the day that we commemorate those that made the supreme sacrifice in order to give us the freedom that we enjoy today.

So you Aussies and Kiwis, get out there, play some 2 up and enjoy your freedom, while you also remember those who made it possible.

LEST WE FORGET

Enjoy
Turts

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by thomas on Apr 24^th, 2007, 3:58pm

Some of the toughest dudes in WWII.

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by Kevin_M on Apr 24^th, 2007, 4:50pm

on 04/24/07 at 15:58:26, thomas wrote:

Some of the toughest dudes in WWII.

;)

The rats of Tobruk ring of steel defied Rommel, WWII

http://www.diggerhistory.info/images/flags/tobruk.jpg

The Australian garrison had been relieved after a siege of more than 240 days during which the name of Tobruk had been written in glowing colours in the annals of Australian courage and determination.

WWI

http://www.awm.gov.au/images/a03771.jpg

a trench captured during the attack on Lone Pine, Gallipoli, 8 August 1915.
ANZAC Day commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915.

and on the continent

http://www.awm.gov.au/images/a03042.jpg

Troops of 53rd Battalion wait to don equipment for the attack at Fromelles, 19 July 1916.

Great day for ya's, down under.

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by JeffB on Apr 24^th, 2007, 6:00pm

Enjoy your day guys!

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by George_J on Apr 24^th, 2007, 8:24pm

My respects to your countrymen and women on this day.

Best wishes,

George

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by BB on Apr 24^th, 2007, 10:17pm

Happy Anzac Day everyone.

Proud to have been a Kiwi and now a Kangaroo 8) :)

Time to don a Red Poppy on the vest collar :-*

Annette

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by Charlie on Apr 25^th, 2007, 1:21am

Tough doesn't even come close to what these guys are/were.

Charlie

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by BB on Apr 25^th, 2007, 1:44am

TOBRUK

Tobruk, like Gallipoli, is a name that means much in the war annals of Australia. A parallel can also be drawn between Tobruk and Milne Bay. At Milne Bay the hitherto invincible Japanese suffered his first defeat - at Tobruk the all-conquering German forces received their first set-back - in each case at the hands of Australians.

January, 1941, saw the British forces, with the Australian 6th Division in the fore, sweep the Italians from the Western Desert all the way to Benghazi and beyond. An extended supply line and the committal of British forces, (including the 6th Division) to honour our pledge to Greece, made our position precarious and with the arrival of General Rommel and his Afrika Corps on the scene it was now our turn to retreat.

The 6th Australian Division was relieved by the newly-formed 9th Australian Division under Major-General L.J. Morshead on the 8th of March, 1941, and their role of garrisoning the Western Desert soon changed when Rommel launched his counter-attack. In the face of superior armour, something the British forces lamentably lacked, retreat was inevitable. The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Archibald Wavell, decided however, that Tobruk must be held for, as he said when he handed over the Cyrenaican Command to General Lavarack, "There is nothing between you and Cairo".

Tobruk's strength as a fortress lay in the fact that for an attacker there was no cover around the perimeter as the area is an almost perfectly flat plateau. With the harbour as the heart of the fortress, the defences built to protect it ran in a rough semicircle across the desert from the coast eight miles east of the harbour to the coast again nine miles west of it. The defences had been hewn from the desert and consisted mainly of dozens of strongpoints. These posts were protected by barbed-wire fences and anti-tank ditches. Supplemented by captured Italian weapons the strength of the garrison lay in its fire-power, and the extensive use of minefields offset to some extent the weakness in infantry.

This was the position when the Germans launched their ill-fated attack on April 13th, 1941. Known as the "Easter Battle", the Germans had confidently expected a walk-over - instead it had ended in their being completely routed. The spirit of co-operation, trust and comradeship between the men of the garrison, consisting of two thirds Australian and one third British, was the real strength of Tobruk. No other Middle East front saw understanding between the men of these countries so complete.

On Easter Sunday the enemy made his attack with infantry action against the perimeter. The vigorousness of his attack was matched however by the vigour of our defence, and his success in this phase was very limited.

On the morning of Easter Monday the Germans launched their attack by tanks. The familiar pattern employed by these "Blitzkrieg" experts was to have the tanks break

through the defences - a deep armoured thrust - and through the gap would pour the infantry. In Poland, France and Belgium these tactics had never failed. Once the tanks had broken through it had always been the beginning of the end and the rolling up of the defences had been a matter of course - until Tobruk.

Here the enemy's tanks did not so much break through as they were let through. The Australians lay low until the German infantry appeared in the wake of the tanks. These were engaged by our fire with the result the tanks were left to advance without the support they had expected, and the further they advanced the more intense became the fire they encountered. For there was the secret of our defence - a defence in depth. The combined force of our artillery and tanks lay waiting for them. They were hit with every calibre weapon at our command capable of damaging them. The fire of our 25-pounders at point-blank range was particularly devastating. As the enemy armour in retreat poured through the gap they had made in our lines, they came under the fire of Brens, mortars, rifles and shells and terrible confusion resulted.

Thus ended the Afrika Corps' first attempt to capture the garrison. Tobruk was a nut they could not crack and further attempts such as the Battle of the Salient in April-May had little more success. While Rommel gained a small amount of territory with his far superior forces, the men of the Fortress inflicted such heavy casualties he did not seriously attack Tobruk again in 1941. Under the inspired leadership of General Morshead the actual defensive task of holding Tobruk was, in reality, held by offensive tactics.

This then was the pattern of Tobruk. A thorn in the side of the German army, upsetting his plans for an attack on Egypt, and giving us time to build up our forces for a counter offensive.

For over six months Australians had defied and denied him possession of the area, and although they were evacuated by sea in October for a "rest", having been relieved by the Polish Carpathian Brigade, one battalion, the 2/13th remained to fight its way out and join up with the advancing British Eighth Army on the second advance westwards.

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by Jonny on Apr 25^th, 2007, 4:51pm

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b33_1177506139

Title: Re: ANZAC DAY
Post by Callico on Apr 26^th, 2007, 10:56pm

My hat is off to all who have and are serving from Australia and New Zealand. The British used them as shock troops during WWII, often while lightly armed against Rommel's tanks, but they never gave up or gave ground. If I couldn't have a US Marine at my back I would want one of the ANZAC troops. We owe them a lot.

Jerry