{"id":268,"date":"2008-05-21T22:29:44","date_gmt":"2008-05-21T11:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fffaif.wordpress.com\/?p=268"},"modified":"2008-05-21T22:29:44","modified_gmt":"2008-05-21T11:29:44","slug":"2500-at-bullecourt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/?p=268","title":{"rendered":"2,500 at Bullecourt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fffaif.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/05\/bullecourt_little-cross.jpg\"><\/a><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Froggie Cobber and FFFAIF member Yves Fohlen reports on the ANZAC commemoration at Bullecourt:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/fffaif.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/05\/bullecourt_little-cross.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-269\" src=\"http:\/\/fffaif.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/05\/bullecourt_little-cross.jpg\" alt=\"\\'Little Cross\\' at Bullecourt\" width=\"448\" height=\"336\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>On Saturday 26 April I and Jean Letaille awaked at 6.30 am. After a strong Breakfast we went to the small cross of Remembrance\u00a0settled years ago by Jean Letaille and his friends to commemorate the Australian missings\u00a0of the 2 battles of Bullecourt. We installed the French and the Australian Flag and put in a box the list of the missings.<br \/>\nThen we had lunch with the French Flag bearers and at 3.30 nearby the\u00a0small cross started the Anzac Day ceremony. Jean Letaille, myself, Claude Durant AM, Jules Laude Mayor of Bullecourt welcomed the &#8220;VIPs&#8221;.\u00a0 Among them Mr David Ritchie AO, Australian Ambassador in France, Mr Alan Griffin MP Minister of Vets Affairs, Colonel F Skowronski, Australian Attach\u00e9 of Defence, Mr Paul Stevens AO, Director of the Office of Australian\u00a0War Graves.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>That ceremony was unofficial but very moving. \u00a0Claude Durrant told what happened in the fields&#8230; wreaths were laid.. then in cars we went to the centre of Bullecourt village where the official ceremony started.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>About 2,500 persons were attending!\u00a0(the village of Bullecourt has just about 150\u00a0souls ! ).. once again the ceremony was very moving. The hymns (French, Australian and English Anthems were beautifully performed by an Australian army woman). Then we marched to the Digger monument\u00a0where again the ceremony reached\u00a0an other level of emotions with the launching of Pigeons.\u00a0 Poems sung and told (in Flanders fields\u00a0J McCrea) and again we sang the Australian Anthem and the French Marseillaise.. wreaths were laid&#8230; All those who have been to Bullecourt can understand these eerie moments &#8230;it seems that time has stopped.. and we the living were with the souls of those who never came back home&#8230;I think that Peter Benson and Stuart Curry FFFAIF members will tell you better than me how moving it was..<br \/>\nAnd then we slowly marched back to the village to share le verre de l&#8217;amiti\u00e9&#8230;Anzac day ceremony 2008 at Bullecourt was one of the best ever.. It\u00a0brought me more energy\u00a0to the purpose of my life: to help Australians and others in their Remembrance<br \/>\nLEST WE FORGET<br \/>\nYves Fohlen<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To view the Australian soldier singing the Australian National Anthem, follow the link:<\/p>\n<p>[youtube=http:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=AgrB2vwcj5M]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Froggie Cobber and FFFAIF member Yves Fohlen reports on the ANZAC commemoration at Bullecourt: \u00a0 On Saturday 26 April I and Jean Letaille awaked at 6.30 am. After a strong Breakfast we went to the small cross of Remembrance\u00a0settled years &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/?p=268\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[57,65,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anzac-day","category-bullecourt","category-commemorations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","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=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}