Anzac Day Dawn Service Commemorative Address 2025

Rear Admiral Matthew Paul Buckley, AM, CSC, RAN.

[E&OE]

It is a great privilege to be with you this morning to honour the service and sacrifice of Australians over many generations… to our nation… in all wars, and in the sometimes-fractious peace that bridges major conflict.

Our history tells us much about who we are as a nation.

It illustrates that a culture of service is, and always has been, the beating heart of our national identity.

The Gallipoli campaign had been going for nearly a month when 18-year-old Sergeant William Henry Buck arrived at Anzac Cove with the 5th Australian Light Horse Regiment on the 19th of May, 1915.

Four days later, a short armistice was held so that both sides could bury their dead. Sergeant Buck and his men got to work, helping to clear the thousands of dead bodies between the trenches.

This set the tone for the months that would follow.

For seven months at Gallipoli, Sergeant Buck’s regiment never left the front firing line, which, in some places, was only 20 meters from enemy trenches.

The whole time, it felt like everything on the Peninsula was trying to kill them. Bombs, artillery, and sniper fire were a persistent threat.

The men were dirty, thirsty, and disease was rife. It was hell on earth.

Sergeant Buck would carry the brutal memories of Gallipoli for the rest of his life.

After the war, he went back to work and started a family.

At the outset of the Second World War, Sergeant Buck volunteered again, just as determined to serve his country.

This time, he supported the war effort at home, using what he had learned at Gallipoli to train new diggers joining the fight.

He was followed into service by his son Keith.

Trooper Keith Cyril Buck was 19 when he joined the Army. He served in the second-sixth (2/6th) Australian Commando Squadron in New Guinea and Morotai.

In New Guinea, the squadron spent seven months conducting long-range reconnaissance patrols, and capturing ground ahead of the main force.

Along with the physical brutality of war, the unrelenting hyper-alertness of jungle warfare left many of these men with emotional scars.

At the end of the Second World War, Trooper Buck volunteered to continue his service with the British Commonwealth Occupational Force in Japan.

When his duty was finally over, he returned to Australia and became the father of two sons, Dennis and Raymond.

Both sons followed their father, and grandfather, into service with the RAN and RAAF respectively in 1971.

Chief Petty Officer Dennis Keith Buck served in the Royal Australian Navy for eight years as a Marine Technician Submariner, conducting special operations in the Indo-Pacific with the silent service, the submarine force.

Warrant Officer Raymond William Buck served in the Royal Australian Air Force as an Aviation Technician for 26 years, including a three-year tour in Malaysia.

Both brothers served during the Cold War - a period of heightened strategic tension between the world’s great powers.

There was an ever-present threat of escalation to nuclear war.

Service during this time required steady hands.

Their service contributed decades of relative peace and prosperity, allowing Australia to grow into the nation we know today.

Keith now 102 years old, along with his sons Dennis and Raymond Buck are commemorating this Anzac Day together in Brisbane, reflecting on their service, the mates they served with, and those who didn’t come home.

The Buck family story is synonymous with Australia’s culture of service.

A culture through which sons and daughters have answered their nation’s call in times of peril, undeterred by the suffering of their parents and grandparents at war and on the home front during war.

As I look at my own sons – young men, 15, 17 and 19 years old – I think about all of the families who sent their young sons and daughters off to war.

Just like my own sons, they had their whole lives ahead of them. But, many of them would not return.

When dark days come again, I am confident that their generation, and those who follow, will do what is required.

May the stories of every sailor, soldier and aviator who has served our nation at war, in competition, and in crisis, be remembered.

And, may the spirit of those more than 103,000 Australians on the wall of Remembrance behind me, who made the ultimate sacrifice be with us always.

Lest we forget.