AUSTRALIA
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South Australia
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CANBERRA AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL DAY FOUR

The Australian War Memorial was founded in 1941 and has several main area's. These are the Commemorative Area (shrine) including the Hall of Memory with the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier. Memorial galleries and Research Centre. The War Memorial also has outdoor Sculptures. The Memorial is currently open daily from 10am until 5pm. Entry is free. Onsite under cover parking is available.

Menin Gate Lions

Australian War Memorial Canberra

Through the main entry foyer to the War Memorial stand the Menin Gate Lions.

In 1936 two large stone lions were donated to the Australian War Memorial by the mayor of the Belgian city of Ypres. They were given to the Australian government in the years after the First World War as a gesture of friendship. In exchange, the Memorial presented to Ypres a bronze casting of C Web Gilbert's sculpture Digger on behalf of the Australian government.

Carved from calcareous bluestone in the eighteenth century, the lions had originally stood on plinths either side of the Menin Gate at Ypres -one of two entries into the medieval fortified city. It was through this gate that British and Dominion troops marched off the the battlefields of the Ypres Salient between 1914 and 1918. During this period the lions were toppled from their plinths by the same shell-fire that reduced most of Ypres to rubble. Portions of the damaged sculptures were later reconstructed to show off the lions in their former glory.

After the war, the Menin Gate was chosen as the site for a memorial to the thousands of allied soldiers killed in Belgium during the First World War who have no known graves. The names of 54,900 British and Dominion soldiers are commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, of which 6,187 are Australian.

-Australian War Memorial Canberra

The Last Post

The daily Last Post Ceremony is from 4.30pm.

Free tickets are required in advance.

The format is;

Australian National Anthem then a piper's lament, a soldier's story is told and recited by Defence Force personnel, finishing off with the Last Post. A Wreath may be laid at the Ceremony with prior arrangement on the day.

Ongoing redevelopment works began in 2022 ($550 million) and are expected to be completed by 2028.

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