ANZAC DAY
Half a world away from dawn services in Australia & New Zealand, a small group of dignitaries will meet in Malta this Anzac Day among the neat rows of headstones at sun-baked Pieta Military Cemetery just outside Valletta – as they have since 1916 – to commemorate a moving but largely forgotten chapter of Gallipoli lore.
It is the story of how a tiny, ancient, impoverished and battle-scarred nation in the centre of the Mediterranean opened its arms and hearts to care for thousands of wounded, traumatised and sick young Anzacs, many of them still teenagers, who arrived aboard a flotilla of blood-soaked hospital ships from the battlefields of Gallipoli.
While most of the 57,950 soldiers evacuated to Malta recovered and eventually left, some 202 Australians and 72 New Zealanders did not, and are in war cemeteries across the archipelago.
Apart from their graves hewn from the parched, rocky Maltese earth, there is little other physical evidence the Anzacs were ever in Malta, despite the enormity of their presence over a century ago.
The voyage across the Eastern Mediterranean in these makeshift hospital ships from the Gallipoli Peninsula to Malta was not an easy one. It took the steam ships up to eight days to cover the 1163-kilometre journey.
At the beginning of April 1915, there were 824 military hospital beds in Malta. At the end of May 1915, there were more than 6000 in 14 hospitals spread all over the island. At its peak there were 25,522 beds in 28 hospitals, with the highest number of patients on any one day a staggering 16,004.
We will remember them 🥀 🌺
(article written by Andrew Hornery a senior journalist and former Private Sydney columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald).
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
Do you think you know the answer to our daily riddle? Don't spoil it for your neighbours! Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm.
Want to stop seeing riddles in your newsfeed?
Head here and hover on the Following button on the top right of the page (and it will show Unfollow) and then click it. If it is giving you the option to Follow, then you've successfully unfollowed the Riddles page.
Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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48.3% Yes
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49.7% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
Here's Wednesday's whodunit!
I am heavy forward, but backward, I’m not. What am I?
Do you think you know the answer to our daily riddle? Don't spoil it for your neighbours! Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm.
Want to stop seeing riddles in your newsfeed?
Head here and hover on the Following button on the top right of the page (and it will show Unfollow) and then click it. If it is giving you the option to Follow, then you've successfully unfollowed the Riddles page.
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