Speech notes for
The Hon Danna Vale MP
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs
Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence
At the Anzac Day Ceremony
Bullecourt, France

It is privilege to commemorate Anzac Day at one of the most famous battlefields in France and Australia’s shared wartime history.

This place tells a tale of tragedy redeemed by exceptional courage and bravery.

In 1917, Bullecourt was in the middle of the Hindenburg Line – a mass of barbed wire joining concrete block houses and trenches. In some places the wire was 100 metres thick, and no army had been able to break through it.

On the night of 11 April 1917 the Australians attacked the Germans at Bullecourt. To the front of the 16th Battalion was one of the most famous fighting leaders of the Australian Imperial Force - Major Percy Black. The former gold prospector from Western told his colonel as he left the Australian lines: I mayn’t come back, but we’ll get the Hindenburg Line.

The Australians had no artillery support, and the tanks that were supposed to break through the wire broke down or bogged in the muddy ground. Despite this, the Australians did the unthinkable and fought their way into the German trenches, the first soldiers to break through the Hindenburg Line. Proudly they looked for Major Black. But he lay dead on the wire.

Only a handful of men were left alive to hold the trenches. The Germans realised this, and counter-attacked on three sides. Overwhelmed, the Australians were forced to withdraw. The only order given was to “fight it out like Australians”.

Three weeks later, the Australians returned and again captured the German trenches. For two weeks they endured vicious counter-attacks until the Germans finally gave in. When the smoke cleared from the battlefield, some 10,000 Australians had been killed or wounded trying to save Bullecourt.

Today, your fields and war cemeteries guard the remains of the young Australians who died here. Your monuments and your wonderful museum keep alive the story of Major Percy Black, the 16th Battalion and the Australian Imperial Force.

On behalf of the Government and people of Australia, I would like to express my appreciation to you all, for the care and reverence you still show for those who fought here 86 years ago.

And on this Anzac Day – the day when all Australians remember those who have served our nation – I am honoured to join you in remembering those who have fallen in the defence of France and the ideals that we share.

Lest we Forget