THE ranks of World War II veterans are thinning, but thousands of younger men and women stepped up to carry on the Anzac tradition as Sydney marked the Gallipoli landing of exactly 98 years ago.
After a solemn dawn service at the Cenotaph in Sydney's Martin Place, an estimated 20,000 veterans, serving defence force personnel and relatives of old soldiers took part in the Anzac Day parade up George St.
Thousands of flag-waving onlookers cheered as sturdy old veterans marched past and their more frail comrades were pushed in wheelchairs or rode in army vehicles.
Maurice Kriss, 76, a navy gunner in Malaya, said Anzac Day was his favourite day of the year.
"In my life I live from one Anzac Day to another," he said.
"As long as I can do the march I feel alive."
James Thompson marched in honour of his father Horace Thompson, who was just 17 when he landed at Gallipoli, in Turkey, in 1915.
He said it was important to keep the Anzac legacy alive now that no World War I diggers were left and that was a lesson he impressed on his son, who also marched.
"I told him about how proud he should be to have had someone that participated in that war," Mr Thompson said.
Rear Admiral Rothesay Swan, who led the navy's contingent in the parade, reflected on the doubts and fear he felt as a midshipman on HMAS Shropshire in World War II.
It was hard to convey the feeling of being in a big sea battle like Leyte Gulf in 1942, he said.
"It was not easy knowing that you may not be alive at the end of the day or even the next day," Mr Swan said.
Former Defence Force chief Peter Cosgrove, who joined the parade in Sydney, said the cheers from the crowd were uplifting for veterans.
"People wearing grandpa's medals, great-grandpa's medals, turned up and marched with the veterans who are still up and about," General Cosgrove said.
"To me that's special ... I like the idea that there's a transference of something important within family groups from one generation to the next."
At the midday memorial service, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said Anzac Day was Australia's most sacred national day, but not a glorification of war.
"No veteran that I've ever met has sought to glorify war.
"Rather, it's a celebration of freedom and a commemoration of those who sacrificed for us and guaranteed the freedoms that we enjoy here today."
RSL NSW President Don Rowe said the younger veterans turning up to march were helping make up for the thinning out of World War II veterans.
"There are battalions there now down to literally platoon size, in other words half a dozen men where there used to be a battalion with a thousand to 1200 men."
Mr Rowe said younger veterans now felt they were part of the Anzac tradition and were more inclined to march.
"So they should, because a lot of those guys have spent more time on the frontline than my father did during the Second World War."
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