By JESSE GRAHAM
HUNDREDS of Healesvillians braved the cold weather for this year’s Anzac Day Dawn Service, massing at the RSL while stars were still visible in the sky.
Seats were quickly occupied and the standing crowd filled the RSL car park as commemorations officer, Bob Gannaway, began the service with groups laying commemorative wreaths.
He then spoke about one of the town’s soldiers who served in World War I, James Gordon Harris, who was born in 1886 and lived at Coranderrk in Healesville.
Mr Gannaway said that Harris enlisted on 21 November, 1917, and was posted to the 59th Australian Infrantry Battalion.
“It was with this battalion on July 4, 1918, at the Battle of Hamel, during the advance … that James was killed in action – he has no known grave,” he said.
“However, his name is honoured and commemorated in the province of Picardy in France, on the Australian National Memorial.”
Healesville High School principal, George Perini, spoke about Frank Oliver Loader, a solider killed during the Battle of Fromelles, but missing for more than 90 years and identified by DNA in 2009.
Yarra Ranges councillor, Fiona McAllister, meanwhile, spoke about Clifford Ashburner, whose body is buried at Healesville Cemetery.
Clifford served in the Boer War, World War I and World War II, enlisting for the army at the age of 12.
“Words fail me, as a mother of a 12-year-old, to try and imagine what the horrors of trench warfare must have felt to a 12-year-old – yet he still went on to serve in two more wars,” Cr McAllister said.
Healesville High School captains, Ally Melville and Chenile Chandler read poems, before the crowd stood and Captain Glenn Mitchell recited The Ode, before The Last Post was performed by bugler, John Stanhope as the sun rose.
