Recalling Anzac Day

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By PETER ESILA
ANZAC Day is special to many Australians and New Zealanders who pay tribute to the fallen heroes.
Among the few that gathered at the Bomana War Cemetery in Port Moresby yesterday morning to commemorate the day was an Australian whose grandfather Bernard Alan Breed fought during World War II in New Guinea.
“My grandfather fought in the 2/13 battalion,” Scott Emerson said.
“This is my first Anzac Day here in PNG, I arrived here last August.”
Emerson’s grandfather survived the war and passed away 10 years ago.
At the cemetery yesterday, Emerson was looking for his grandfather’s friends tombstones in the infantry.
“My grandfather did not talk much about the war,” he said.
“I do recall one funny story he had when the troops would settle down to make some tea and one of his mates, who was in charge of making the tea. The guys just had a campaign and fought really hard against the Japanese and the guy just grabbed a hand full of tea and threw it into the pot and the tea just went everywhere and all the guys were just giving him stick, giving him hell, ‘we just fought this hard campaign and there’s tea all over the place’.
“So they could not drink their tea for the day.
“He tells it much better than me, but it’s always a funny story.”
Whilst stationed in PNG, Breed made close friends with a local Papuan who he helped.
“He sent letters to him for many years, conversing with him and lost contact with him in the 1980s,” Emerson said.
Breed, of the 17th platoon 2/13th Battalion, served in Papua New Guinea in 1943, in Borneo 1945 to 1946, and volunteered with the British Commonwealth occupation force deployed to Hiroshima, Japan 1946 to 1947.
“After American forces bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my grandfather was the first to volunteer to go to Japan as part of the British Commonwealth occupation force to help the Japanese people rebuild Hiroshima.”
Emerson said Anzac meant a lot to him.
“I have been marching in Sydney for many years in the Anzac Day march, and it is very special to me, all my family have fought in wars going back to World War I, so it is a very special day to me. That is why I came here (Bomana War Cemetery) to share my respects to the fallen.
“Anzac is very much part of Australia and New Zealand, we respect the fallen and what they did for us,” he said.