{"id":1705,"date":"2008-11-12T01:21:59","date_gmt":"2008-11-11T14:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fffaif.wordpress.com\/?p=1705"},"modified":"2008-11-12T01:21:59","modified_gmt":"2008-11-11T14:21:59","slug":"le-hamel-re-dedication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/?p=1705","title":{"rendered":"Le Hamel Re-dedicated"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC, re-dedicated the Australian Corps Memorial at Le Hamel Memorial in northern France, on Saturday 8th<\/sup> November, 2008. The new memorial replaces the original Australian Corps Memorial dedicated on 4th<\/sup> July 1998.<\/p>\n

\"lehamel-rededication_sml\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo: The Re-dedication of the Australian Corps Memorial, Le Hamel. [www.gg.gov.au]<\/p>\n

During the ceremony, Her Excellency addressed those present:
\nI am privileged, as a symbol and voice for my countrymen and women, to come to this place, this sacred shrine, to thank and to honour, to rejoice and to dream – with, for, and in their stead – those fine Australian men who fought the Battle of Le Hamel.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

This place
\nwhere conflict raged,
\ntears and blood were shed;
\nlives, lost and saved;
\ncourage reigned, no matter triumph or defeat;
\nnationhood, affirmed;
\nbrothers and sisters, sure and proud.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

This place
\nwhere history is recorded;
\nstories, told;
\nlessons, written;
\nprecious memories, preserved and fading;
\n<\/span>the past observed, in present wisdom and future light………..<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

To read the Governor General’s speech click here<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

For more photos of the Re-dedication from the\u00a0Governor General web-site click here<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

To read The Sydney Morning Herald’s <\/em>report on the Governor General’s visit to the Western Front, click here<\/a>.\u00a0 You can also follow the links to Foreign field, forever Australia<\/em> and Finally, one soldier’s family finds a sense of peace.<\/em><\/p>\n

To read The Melbourne Age’s<\/em> report, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Governor General also visited Fromelles while on the Western Front. To read the ABC<\/em> ‘s report on the visit to the Fromelles village church, The Cobber’s Statue, V.C. Corner and Pheasant Wood click here<\/a>. While on the ABC page you can\u00a0view the news footage of the visit by clicking on ‘Video’.<\/p>\n

The Australian’s <\/em>report of the Governor General’s visit – Sarkozy thanks Quentin Bryce for Diggers’ sacrifice in France<\/em> – includes a photo gallery \u00a0of the visit. To read the report click here<\/a>. <\/strong>To view the photo gallery click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

The Families and Friends of the First AIF<\/strong><\/em> thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers – presently buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood – dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and urge those responsible to ensure all necessary scientific and other means are employed to properly identify each soldier.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC, re-dedicated the Australian Corps Memorial at Le Hamel Memorial in northern France, on Saturday 8th November, 2008. The new memorial replaces the original Australian Corps Memorial … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,73,80,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commemorations","category-events","category-le-hamel","category-memorials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}