A crisp, clear morning greeted the thousands who attended Anzac Day dawn services throughout St George.
At Hurstville's Memorial Square on Forest Road, the Hurstville RSL Club and South Hurstville RSL Club Sub-Branch service was conducted by Bruce Worsley and Brad McIver.
In the address given by Les Hemperger, service participants heard that the legend of the Anzacs remained strong despite the passing of years.
"It is heartening to see the increasing diversity and numbers of people in attendance," he said.
"As we stand here with the light about to break, we wonder what they must have felt as they looked out from their landing ships.
"They were volunteers, they were young, they were half a world away from their homes and the balance of their lives lay before them
"Many had joined up out of what was a sense of adventure and now the landing was about to begin
"How would it go for them and the men on the Anzac shore.
"In those early hours they ran into history and they were running for their lives."
Mr Hemperger told the gathering the Anzacs were met by a well organised and brilliantly commanded defence.
"They dug in against impossible odds and held it and when they successfully withdrew over 8000 had lost their lives.
"Before that day in April 1915 few Australians would've known the name Gallipoli and now 100 years later it is a name we cannot forget
"What the men could not have know that fateful day was how their deeds would impress themselves on the identity of a nation.
"And so as we come today to pay homage to them, the original Anzacs, pay homage to the nation and the ideals they helped to create."
Mr Hemperger said freedom only survives as long as there are people willing to defend it and that was the Anzac spirit handed down to us.
"So here we stand today along with thousands of others in cities and towns across Australia and New Zealand to honour the brave men and women and great tradition.
"We gather as we always gather, not to glorify war but t remind ourselves we value who we are and the freedoms we possess and to acknowledge the courage and sacrifice of those who contributed so much to shaping the identity of this proud nation."
The Kogarah RSL Sub-Branch marked Anzac Day with a march from its former club site to the Cenotaph next to Jubilee Oval.
Sub-Branch president Barry Glover told the gathering at the cenotaph that the Australian people could never forget the sacrifices of the Anzacs and the Australian military personnel who followed them.
"On this day above all days, we recall those who in the great tragedy of war gave their lives for Australia and for the freedom of mankind," Mr Glover said.
Those who will sleep amid the ridges of Gallipoli and the terraced hills of Palestine, in the lovely cemeteries of France, of the simmering gaze of the Libyan desert, amid the olive groves of Greece and the Middle East and the jungles of Malaya, New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, rugged Korea and the unhappy land of Vietnam.
"We remember all who have since fallen by or side in both World Wars and all wars since, in the air and on the sea.
"We think of every man, woman and child, who in those crucial years, died so that the light of freedom and humanity might continue to shine."
