*Reserve Forces Day

           Reserve Forces Day 2009

Defence Reserves have played an important part in Australian history since colonial days and have contributed to every major conflict in which Australia has been involved. A 55-strong CMF (Citizen Military Forces) battalion accompanied the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to the German settlements of New Guinea in 1914.

Inaugurated in July 1998, Reserve Forces Day commemorates the service and achievements of the Reserve Forces of the Australian Defence Forces, both past and present.

Photo: Reserve Forces Day, Canberra, Saturday 27 June 2009 [Chris Munro]

Commemorations were held in Canberra on 27 June 2009. Services and marches will be held in all Australian capital cities at the beginning of July as well as Alice Springs (NT); Mount Gambier (SA); Horsham (Vic); Lismore, Taree, Newcastle, Tamworth, Parkes & Wagga Wagga (NSW); Wondai and Ipswich (Qld); and Launceston (Tas).

For more information, visit the Australian Reserve Forces Day Council website by clicking here.

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The Families and Friends of the First AIF thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood by German soldiers following the Battle of Fromelles on 19/20 July 1916 dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and applauds the joint decision to DNA test the remains at exhumation and use every reasonable method to attempt identification of each soldier.