A cold and damp start to the day couldn’t deter locals from turning out in big numbers at the Korumburra Cenotaph in Coleman Park for the Anzac Day dawn service, with people coming to remember and reflect.
Korumburra RSL president David Jackson was delighted with the turnout, saying the crowd was estimated at up to 300.
Member for Gippsland South Danny O’Brien spoke, reflecting on the stunning 78 percent of Korumburra’s population eligible to enlist who answered the call to arms in 1914.
“It was a similar story across hundreds of rural communities, many of them, like Korumburra, barely a few decades old and still virtually being cut from virgin forest,” Danny said.
Korumburra’s WWI enlistment figure compared to the national average of 50 percent of eligible men joining up.
Cr Jenni Keerie recited the poem’ We remember those on ANZAC Day’ by Trish Reeves, which recalls not only lives lost but those wounded or psychologically scarred by war.
There was a catafalque party from HMAS Cerberus and students from Korumburra Secondary College were among those laying wreaths at the cenotaph, with Nigel Hutchinson-Brooks playing ‘The Last Post’ and ‘Reveille’.
