Remembrance Day 2024 - Lest We Forget
At 11am on 11 November 1918, the guns on the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare. The Germans called for an armistice (suspension of fighting) to secure a peace settlement and accepted the allied terms of unconditional surrender.
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month acquired a special significance in the post-war years. It became universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the war.
The Great War was long, traumatic; and took a debilitating toll on all the nations involved - 9 million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded.
Throughout the course of the war, 330,000 Australian soldiers saw active service.
From a population of 5 million (around the same as Melbourne’s population today), Australia lost almost 62,000 men during the Great War.
They include 209 men from the Australian Flying Corps who were killed during the war, whose memories are preserved in Australian Flying Corps Memorial at RAAF Williams, Point Cook Base - a place that holds great significance to our Air Force. The names of those 209 men along with those men and women killed in subsequent war operations rest in sealed canisters in the Memorial itself.
Over time, what began as Armistice Day became Remembrance Day commemorating the fallen from all wars and conflicts.
In Australia on the 75th anniversary of the Armistice in 1993, the remains of an unknown Australian soldier, exhumed from a First World War military cemetery in France, were ceremonially entombed in the Australian War Memorial's Hall of Memory. This ceremony touched a chord across the Australian nation and reinforced Remembrance Day as a significant day of commemoration.
In 2024, at 11am on 11 November, we will again observe a minute’s silence to commemorate and honour the fallen and remember and give thanks to those brave men and women who returned to build the future of the Australia we are so privileged to live in today.
This year, the Air Force Association – Victoria is honoured to join Air Force in commemorating Remembrance Day at the Australian Flying Corps Memorial at RAAF Williams, Point Cook Base
We will remember them.
Lest We Forget.
