On this day, Australia, in one moment, stepped into the world of great manhood.  

Australia was already proud of its bushmen soldiers who answered the mother country’s call to arms in South Africa against the rebellious Boers at the turn of the 20thcentury.

So when Britain again asked for support when war broke out in Europe in 1914, Australia did not hesitate to back the mother country again.

This time it was 120,000 bushmen soldiers of the combined Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who landed under cover of darkness along six beaches on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Records show that little were they to know it would take eight long months and extreme loss of lives to retain their precarious foothold against the Turks, only to be drawn back from the battlefields by  the British War Office, which deemed it  ‘‘policy to abandon the attempt owing primarily to the need for concentrating forces elsewhere’’.

Plans for evacuation quietly proceeded and the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps sailed to other war zones in the Middle East. 

From many aspects, the campaign is regarded as a tragedy – one correspondent has said the tragedy of the campaign is not that it failed  but that it so nearly succeeded.

But the tragedy to those whose loved ones paid the supreme sacrifice in this epic landing is lightened by the realisation that the sacrifices were not, after all, in vain.

Correspondents on the spot soon tired of reporting the full title for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and the abbreviation, ANZAC, was adopted.  

True, it was a failure militarily but it brought glory to Australia and New Zealand.  It gave us a tradition of which we are justly proud – a tradition upon which to build, and upon which we have already built, other traditions.  

The brave and enduring qualities of the people of Australia and New Zealand were previously mostly confined  to what is known as the ‘‘good old pioneering spirit’’.

The Anzacs proved that this spirit is an ingredient of the national blood. Our enemies no less than our friends have come to admire this spirit and what might be termed the Australian and New Zealand ‘‘quality’’.

And it was with these enduring qualities of the ‘‘good old pioneering spirit’’ that many of the returned Anzacs went in search of work and a place to call home in the rich mineral fields of western Queensland.

In 1923, nearly eight years after the Anzacs landed on Gallipoli Peninsula, the emergent camp of prospectors and miners grew in the new mining field of Mount Isa.

Those who ventured forth proved to be valued workers who  thrived in the barren tent camp under the blazing hot sun.

It was among these few men that the first informal Anzac Day in 1925 was remembered and honoured in Mount Isa with a simple meal of boiled beef and spuds at Mrs Boyd’s tin and hessian boarding house.

By 1928, the veteran numbers had increased and plans were discussed to form a sub branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia.

Captain J. E. Stevenson was elected the first president and after 18months the new RSSILA sub branch (much later to be rebirthed as the RSL – Returned Servicemen’s League) was offered an old hut, at the top of Isa Street, in which to hold their regular meetings.

From these humble but invariably proud gatherings, 87years ago, the  diggers grew Anzac Day commemorations in Mount Isa.

In 1931, 80 veterans gathered for lunch in Boyd’s Hall, West Street (next to what today is called the Icon on Isa), to reminisce the Great War. 

This was also the first year of many that the women of the newly formed  branch of the Country Women’s Association catered for the men.

By 1933, Boyd’s Hall was no longer big enough to cater for Anzac Day lunch so a move was made to Smith’s Picture Theatre, where along with the traditional lunch, badges were sold and a collection taken up that would to go towards a memorial over the graves of the fallen at the  cemetery.Many of the early miners, such 

as Mr R. A. Clarke, who at the young age of 16, joined the navy as a diver and went on to serve on HMAS Australia during the end of the war.  

Another veteran now working and living in Mount Isa was Irishman Mr J. P. Mulholland, who joined the British Navy as a wireless operator before re-enlisting with the Canadian Army while stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  

Both men started working for Mount Isa Mines in 1930 and went on to be major influences in the formation of the RSSILA. In later years, with the introduction of the Anzac Day parade, it was a proud Mr Clarke who led the parade.

The first dawn service, in 1941, was conducted at the flagpole in front of the RSSILA building in Isa Street.  

In the years following 1941, the dawn service was loyally attended by diggers, family, friends, dignitaries and military service personnel.

In 1945 – the Third Victory Loan campaign was launched: a donation scheme of the RSSILA that saw Mount Isa noted as one of the high achievers in Queensland with £121.  

It was also the first year  the three local schools were invited to march in the street parade, which moved from Kruttschnitt Park to the Star Picture Theatre in Marian Street.  

The Anzac Day organisers were delighted with the schoolchildren’s input with banners and costumes to bring meaning to their participation. 

But it wasn’t until 1949, after the end of the Second World War, that the veterans were able to march in three contingents; WWI, WWII and air force.  

It was also the year when a slight change to the traditional lunch gave way to a buffet dinner under the stars at Spear Creek.

After the Second World War, Australia and indeed Mount Isa welcomed many former Europeans.  One such emigrant was Mr Charles Fryc, a former professional army officer in the horse artillery section of the Czechoslovakian Army who embraced his new life in Mount Isa during 1950.

Mount Isa continued to welcome WWI and WWII veterans, including ‘‘Bluey’’ King, who arrived in 1948 straight from the army.  He was with the 7th Division in New Guinea and later spent two years in Japan.

Nick Alexi, a former soldier with the Cyprus Army that fought alongside the British Army, arrived in Mount Isa and soon was employed at Mount Isa Mines.

It was several years before Nick and his fellow Cypriots marched under the Cyprus banner.

By 1955, the Anzac Day parade was attended by 500 veterans who proudly marched through Mount Isa streets together with an increasing number of schoolchildren, some of whom started to wear their grandfather’s WWI and Boer War medals.

Anzac Day in Mount Isa was becoming a melting pot of nationalities with not only WWI and WWII, Boer Wars represented but now Korea veterans were invited to march.

From 1958 through to 1964, the Anzac parade continued to quietly grow in attendance before the 50th anniversary of that fateful landing on Gallipoli Peninsula was honoured in 1965.

But it was the parade in 1966 that broke all participant numbers in 25 years, with the Anzac Day parade attracting close to 1000 marchers. 

The pride and respect of the veterans was closely followed by the enthusiasm of the children representing the eight  schools, Girl Guides, Boy Scouts and various youth clubs.

By 1968, WWI veteran Paddy McCarthy was holding pride of place at the head of the Anzac Day parade.  A much-loved and respected member of the RSL, he was part of the first contingent to rush Gallipoli’s shores 53years earlier.  

For many years, Paddy marched in the parade lead position before relenting to being driven in the same lead position.  

It was also the first year veterans of Malaysia, Borneo and South Vietnam marched under the SE Asian banner.

By 1969, there were 10 WWI veterans in the parade.

The turnout of marchers and spectators was considerably down in 1973, which was thought to be the result of a record length Easter break followed closely by Anzac Day. 

Since the early ’50s, the cenotaph in front of the Memorial Swimming Pool (now renamed Splashez) hosted the dawn service before it was moved to George McCoy Park (behind the RFDS) in the late 1980s.  Last month, it was  again moved to the lawns in front of the Mount Isa Civic Centre.

Anzac Day is a chance to honour the lives of those gallant men and women who went to war in order to save our country.  Tomorrow, Mount Isa will honour the 100th anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli Peninsula with the solemn and spiritual Anzac Day dawn service at the new cenotaph in front of the civic centre, followed mid-morning with a street parade along Isa and West streets.

Because of the Great War – World War One – Australia now has a national day – ANZAC DAY.

Researched and written by Kim-Maree Burton. Photographs supplied by Brian Adamson, North Queensland History Collection. Information sourced from the archives of the Cloncurry Advocate, North West Star, Isa News, Courier Mail and MIM.