Lest we forget — Albany marks Anzac Day 2021 with stirring dawn service on Mt Clarence

As dawn broke over King George Sound and a burnt orange hue started to rise from the horizon, Lieutenant-Colonel Lisa Kelliher paid tribute to her great-Uncle Harry. Private Henry “Harry” Joseph Kelliher was a soldier on one of the New Zealand vessels that departed from King George Sound in the first Anzac convoy on November 1, 1914. He was a drover, a wool classer and an Anzac, and Lt-Col Kelliher knew him as uncle Harry. “Uncle Harry served as a trooper and survived Gallipoli,” she said. “After being wounded and gassed in the Somme, in 1917, he was invalid and evacuated to England for medical treatment. “Uncle Harry lived a long life back in New Zealand, dedicated to philanthropy, business and family, passing in September 1991. “It is an honour to be here in Albany as uncle Harry was so many years ago.” Lt-Col Kelliher, a military adviser to the New Zealand High Commission in Canberra, gave the Anzac Day dawn service address in Albany on Sunday. Standing alongside the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial on Mt Clarence, she spoke of the strong bonds between the two nations. “In times of adversity both countries repeatedly find common ground,” she said. “We know each other very well, perhaps more so than any other two nations on this earth. “We are, put simply, quite good mates. “Underpinning this mateship and shared understanding is a common military history, shaped by these terrible losses and suffering of our respected countries. “Kiwis and Aussies have worked together while sacrificing so much.” Attendance at the dawn service was capped at 500 because of COVID-19 restrictions. The crowd was dotted with current and former servicemen and women. The lockdown in Perth and Peel left Albany’s service as the biggest in the State. Some people, such as Royal Australian Air Force military working dog handler Corporal Nathan Beck, would argue it is the most significant dawn service in Australia. In the 100th anniversary of the RAAF, Cpl Beck was at Mt Clarence with retired service dog, Digger. The Belgian Malinois wore the medals of Cpl Beck’s previous dog, Victory, who had deployed with Cpl Beck to East Timor in 2012. “My previous service dog, Victory, she also retired from service and we brought her here for her last voyage before she left us,” Cpl Beck said after the service. “So we thought we’d bring Digger down and he is wearing her medals today. “To me, Albany is probably the most important place to come to do the dawn service. “Seeing the sunrise, looking over the harbour and knowing it is where thousands of thousands of people left from is a pretty humbling experience.” Cpl Beck’s father-in-law, Perth man Jim Joliffe, was wearing his father’s World War II medals. He spoke with pride about his father’s service — a topic that was rarely broached as he was growing up. “We learned more about what he did after he died than when he was around,” Mr Joliffe said. “I guess it was part of his life that he had got the other side of and didn’t want to go back there. “But I think that generation also didn’t about these things. “He had several brothers and some of them didn’t come back. We’re just proud of what he did.” A regular at the Kings Park dawn service, Mr Joliffe decided to make the trip to Albany this year. His son is in the Eastern States, serving with the RAAF. “We’ve always wanted to do the Anzac service here,” Mr Joliffe said. Former Special Air Services Regiment soldier Antony Zahra had travelled from New South Wales to attend his first dawn service in Albany. Mr Zahra lives in Broken Hill, a town with a connection to the Albany dawn service. Padre Arthur White, the World War I army chaplain who introduced Anzac Day dawn services in Albany, also served the Anglican Church in Broken Hill. “He actually also built a church in my hometown,” Mr Zahra said. “He actually got a posting to South Australia and then to Broken Hill in NSW which is my hometown, so that’s why I wanted to come here. “I’ve never been to this service and it’s just a very, very interesting place that has a lot of history about it.” Mr Zahra started his military career as a school cadet before joining a reserve battalion and then the regular army. Since losing his leg in a motor vehicle accident, he has dedicated his time to helping wounded soldiers. In 2016, he walked the Kokoda Track in 11 days on crutches. Two years later, he took a small team of veterans to Thailand to walk the Thai-Burma Railway for defence welfare charity Warrior Racing. At the conclusion of the dawn service, Albany Sea Rescue volunteers shot three red flares into the sky from King George Sound. The crowd turned to watch as the flares slowly fell to the water, glowing tributes to those who put their lives on the line for the rest of us. Albany-raised Australian Army Captain Aaron Porebski said it was an “unbelievable privilege” to attend a dawn service where the Anzac convoys gathered in 1914, especially with Perth and Peel in lockdown. Now living in Perth and serving as a joint movement control officer in the army, Capt. Porebski has been helping coordinate personnel to clean up the devastation of cyclone Seroja. It was his first dawn service at Mt Clarence since he enlisted 11 years ago. And it was the first ever dawn service for his three-year old son, Eugene, who was born in 2017, while his father was deployed to Iraq. “Ever since I was his age I remember coming up here,” he said. “This is genuinely the best dawn service in the country. I have been posted all around Darwin, Brisbane, Townsville. “To be near where the fleet left from in 1914 it is unlike anything else — it is really special.”