Canungra and Beechmont will remember those who gave their lives in conflicts at services in each town on 25 April 2023.
Canungra Services
Canungra RSL Sub-Branch President, David Day, said Anzac Day has strong associations for many Australian.
“We stand with price on this day to remmeber the fallen and those who served, their names etched in D J Smith Memorial Park and many more throughout or nation and those in New Zealand,” he said.
“Canungra has a local veteran, Aurthur Auld, now aged 103, who enlisted in the second World War. He presently resides on the northern Gold Coast. I have personally known him for over 45 years.”
In Canungra the RSL Sub-Branch is busy organising two Anzac Day services.
The Dawn Service will be held in D J Smith Park commencing 5.30am and the main march steps off from Canungra State School car park at 9.45am.
After the Dawn Service a Gunfire Breakfast will be held at the Canungra School of Arts Hall.
Run by the Canungra Men’s Shed, the Hall will close prior to the Main Service and reopen for comeradery, food and the traditional two up game.
Mr Day asked members of the Canungra community to contact him on 0428 343 585 if they are able to assist to set up and pack down before and after the services.
Beechmont Service
In Beechmont, the Anzac Day service will be held at Graceleigh Park, 1922 Beechmont Road.
The parade registration begins from 11.15am and the parade and service will commence at 11.30am.
Beechmont’s Anzac Day Service will focus on the Vietnam War this year.
In addition to a display depicting Australia’s involvement in Vietnam, the service will honour two local men who served:
Lance Corporal Allen Francis Duncan served in Vietnam from 1968 and Private Robert (Bob) Phillip McCallum who served from 1965.
During the Second World War Japan invaded the French colonies of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
In 1945 the French returned, but Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party, saw an opportunity for his country to become independent.
A bitter war ensued that ended with the French being defeated in 1954.
The Geneva Accords peace agreement in July that year saw the country divided between the communist north and a quasi-democratic (though corrupt and dictatorial) south.
In 1956 North Vietnam began trying to seize control of the south. From the late 1950s, the United States committed troops to help South Vietnam defend itself, rapidly escalating its deployments under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations through the early and mid-1960s.
On 29 April 1965 Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced in parliament that Australia would send a battalion of combat troops to Vietnam.
By the time Australia withdrew its forces almost eight years later, 521 Australian service personnel would be dead.
A light lunch and refreshments are available for purchase at the Hall on Graceleigh after the service with catering by CWA Beechmountain and the Beechmont State School Parents and Citizens Association.
