RSL president Graeme Barnett was overwhelmed with the crowd that turned up to the annual Anzac Day commemoration at the century-old Cenotaph at Royal Park in Launceston.
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Lieutenant-Colonel Barnett estimated the crowd to be 7000 and was particularly pleased with the number of young people who turned up on 'what is truly Australia's national day'.
He said that while in the past many saw the RSL as crusty old farts drinking Guinness they were now an organisation which concentrated on helping veterans.
"We can't keep going with the same crusty old farts we need young people coming through," he said.
The march started at Princes Square at 10.15 am and moved along Charles Street before turning left and arriving at the Cenotaph in time for the 11am service.
Mr Barnett said the crowds had recovered after peaking for the anniversary in 2015.
The crowd was boosted by crew members from Royal Australian Navy submarine HMAS Rankin which arrived at Bell Bay on Wednesday.
Launceston Mayor Matthew Garwood said that at a time when Tasmania's population was just 190,000 the state had provided 13,000 people willing to serve.
He said 70 Tasmanian Aboriginal soldiers had enlisted despite laws excluding them.
Of 1800 soldiers from Launceston who served 250 had died, he said.
Guest speaker and deputy premier Michael Ferguson said the granite cenotaph focused the community's attention on the gift of service and sacrifice made by more than one hundred and three thousand Australians.
Mr Ferguson said that the granite cenotaph had been unveiled on April 25 1924 despite being incomplete because of a delay in getting prepared the brass tablets bearing the names of the fallen.
"This has been occasioned by the difficulty experienced in getting a full list of names," he quoted from a contemporary newspaper article.
Mr Ferguson related the story of a young Anzac, Austin 'Badger' Plummer, from the West Tamar who is commemorated by a Norfolk pine on Rosevears Drive planted by his uncle.
"Austin was just 18 years of age when he enlisted - a very young man at the start of life," he said.
He said a plaque was produced after his death which contained a tribute including the chilling statement that young Austin had received the ominous white feather.
"To receive a white feather in the mail was a very bad thing. During a war this meant that someone thought you were a coward and shouldn't be here at home but fighting in the war for your country, like other brave men," he said.
Mr Ferguson said that a death notice in the Examiner revealed that Austin was killed at the age of 20 on October 14 1917 in Flanders at the Battle of Passchendale.
"For every man and woman who has served the home front so often bears the pain," he said.
Guest speaker Cadet W01 Ryan Polutele said the Anzac spirit was born amongst the chaos and tumult of the Gallipoli campaign.
"It is a spirit characterised by service, courage, respect, integrity and excellence,'" he said.
Riverside High School representative Ryan Macpherson said that the Anzac spirit comprised bravery, mateship and courage spawned on the first day of the Gallipoli campaign on which 2000 soldiers died.
"By the time the campaign ended on December 20, 1915 26,000 had been killed or wounded," he said.
At the end of the service the grey granite plinth, which blended sympathetically with a typical, grey Anzac Day sky, was brightened with hundreds of wreaths laid by service organisations, community groups and schools.
The commemoration was closed by a flawless performance of the Last Post by bugler Evelyn Beasley.
Nick Clark
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
