Anthony Albanese has paid tribute to war veterans as he joined thousands across the nation to commemorate 80 years since the end of the Second World War.
The prime minister’s address at the Sydney Cenotaph on Friday touched on the the words his wartime predecessor Ben Chifley had uttered to the nation on August 15, 1945: “fellow citizens, the war is over”.
“It was a sentence of perfect simplicity, but infinite power,” Mr Albanese said.
On the 80th Victory in the Pacific Day, when Japan accepted the terms of surrender to the Allied forces sparking the end of World War II, Mr Albanese paid tribute to all the stories of courage, resilience, exhaustion, fear and elation and the endless longing for the home so many never saw again.
Almost one million Australians served in uniform during the war, but some 40,000 never got to see its conclusion.
About 66,000 were wounded, while many thousands more became prisoners of war, with 8000 dying in captivity.
“Every life and dream and future swallowed in that vortex of madness and cruelty, from every battlefield and every burning city, from the prisoner of war camps to the unprecedented horror of the concentration camps,” Mr Albanese said.
“These were nightmares made real – not by monsters but by human beings in a grotesque perversion of humanity.”
One of those stories, of country boy Frederick Balfe Emanuel, who flew a B-24 bomber over Borneo in July 1945 but did not live long enough to witness the end of the war, was honoured on Friday.
At age 22, Emanuel enlisted in the Australian army, serving in New Guinea before joining the Far Eastern Liaison Office, where he participated in dangerous reconnaissance missions.
“His story is a heartbreaking reminder of how close some came to seeing peace yet never returned home,” memorial director Matt Anderson said.
Commemorative services were held across the nation to mark Victory in the Pacific Day, including at the Sydney Cenotaph, the National War Memorial in Canberra, the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne and a fly-past over the National War Memorial in Adelaide.
Federal Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh said the day marked the end of a great darkness – brought on by the most devastating global conflict in human history.
Australia played a significant role in the Pacific during World War II, fighting against Japan from 1941 to 1945.
Initially, Australian forces engaged in campaigns in Malaya and Singapore.
After the bombing of Darwin in February 1942, the focus shifted to defending the Australian mainland and supporting the US-led counteroffensive in the Pacific.
RSL national president Greg Melick said the occasion was an important time to recognise the sacrifices of so many fallen soldiers.
“The end of the war brought heartache for many families when, after years of waiting for news of the missing, they were told that their loved ones were not coming home,” Mr Melick said.
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