Once again members of the Royal British Legion Thailand traveled to Kanchanaburi (Bridge over the River Kwai) to join our Australian and New Zealand friends in their Commemoration of ANZAC Day. This year 28 of us travelled up by mini bus along with 30 packed lunches once again provided by Beef of KPK Foods, once there we were  joined by 5 more members,there were plenty of sore heads at 7am Friday morning as of course many of us had celebrated St Georges Day on Thursday. You will notice this year an increase in the number of wreaths that we laid, we had one poppy wreath sent from the UK from the Cannock Branch of the Royal British Legion, we also had 2 wreaths hand delivered 1 from the Amersham Branch of the Royal British Legion and 1 from the War Widows Association.

    Our group outside Chungkai Cemetery.

After the First World War, returned soldiers sought the comradeship they felt in those quiet, peaceful moments before dawn. With symbolic links to the dawn landing at Gallipoli, a dawn stand-to or ceremony became a common form of ANZAC Day remembrance during the 1920s; the first official dawn service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927. Dawn services were originally very simple and followed the operational ritual. In many cases they were restricted to veterans only and the daytime ceremony was for families and other well-wishers. Before dawn the gathered veterans would be ordered to "stand to" and two minutes' silence would follow. At the end of this time a lone bugler would play the Last Post and then concluded the service with Reveille. In more recent times the families and young people have been encouraged to take part in dawn services, and services in Australian capital cities have seen some of the largest turnouts ever. Reflecting this change, the ceremonies have become more elaborate, incorporating hymns, readings, pipers, and rifle volleys. Others, though, have retained the simple format of the dawn stand-to, familiar to so many soldiers. We certainly felt that air of comradeship as the first light of dawn started to put shapes to what had been shadows and we could start to see faces, so many of them young school children here on a pilgrimage or young backpackers who had all headed here for this one day. It was well worth our 3am reveille to get here and the dark walk to the Cenotaph lit only by candles along the path and the ones we carried

  Phillip Smeed, Amersham RBL presents 2 wreaths.        Our wreath along with the Cannock Branch RBL.

   Traffic jam at the entrance to the main cemetery.             The reason for the jam, our Poppy Collectors!!

A special thank you must go to our Standard Bearer Richard Holmes who's Uncle is at rest in Chungkai Cemetery.

                        Three former POW's                                                      Greg and Dot lay 2 wreaths

          Greg, Dot and the British Ambassador                             Australian Honor Guard and our Standard

   Maurice holds the Amersham Branch wreath and Juan the War Widows Association at Chungkai Cemetery.

 As members of the Royal British Legion we were honoured to be alongside our Aussie and Kiwi friends and also honoured that they allowed us to both collect money for our Poppy Appeal ( A total of 18,915 Baht was collected, about 380 pounds) and fly our Standard, but our Parade was not over yet. There is another lesser known cemetery in Kanchanaburi called Chungkai, it is situated about 10km from the main one and lays on the banks of the River Kwai.  Chungkai was one of the base camps on the railway and contained a hospital and church built by Allied prisoners of war. The war cemetery is the original burial ground started by the prisoners themselves, and the burials are mostly of men who died at the hospital. There are now 1,427 Commonwealth and 314 Dutch burials of the Second World War in this cemetery. We first visited Chungkai 2 years and found that not one wreath had been laid there so decided that in future years we would order an extra wreath  and after a few words by our chairman Middy Campbell lay it at the Chungkai Cenotaph, this year however I am glad to say 3 wreaths were laid, ours, the Amersham Branches' and also provided by the Amersham Branch one from The War Widows Association.  Our Duties now complete we returned to our guest house for a well earned cold drink or three!!! before turning into tourists and exploring the local sights.

          Time for a Cold One after the service                              Time for another Cold One at the hotel

   The Ladies doing what they do best, counting money.       Now a major tourist attraction, at the cost of so many life's.

We will return again next year along with our extra wreaths, Poppy Boxes and alarm clocks for that 3am reveille for they are just small burdens to have the Honour of paying our respects to so many, and should anyone reading this wish for us to lay a wreath on there behalf it would be an honor.

Lest We Forget