Anzac Day

Bryan Crump and Brodie Stubbs, the manager of Te Pae Mahara Memorials, from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, walked the track to the Atatürk memorial on Wellington's south coast, to see it first hand, and discuss the national significance of the memorial that honours Turkey's war dead.

Bryan Crump and Brodie Stubbs, the manager of Te Pae Mahara Memorials, from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, walked the track to the Atatürk memorial on Wellington's south coast, to see it first hand, and discuss the national significance of the memorial that honours Turkey's war dead.

Bryan Crump caught up with Sue Densem, the Music Director of the New Zealand Secondary Students' Choir, along with choir leaders, Jasmine Hulton and Teddy Finney-Waters, and cultural leader, Siaosi Lavelua. The group discuss their ANZAC performance at Te Papa, their experiences being part of the choir, and even sing a few tunes for us.

Billy T Award winner, Melanie Bracewell, has graced screens across Australasia with her quick witted charm.

Emeritus Professor Michael Atherton, shares the remarkable story of the lengths troops went too to get pianos to the front during the Second World War.

Culinary historian, Allison Reynolds, shares the history behind the humble Anzac biscuit.

The New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade was a brigade of horsemen from the New Zealand Army during the First World War.

We check in with the southernmost ANZAC Day service taking place in Antarctica at Scott Base.

RNZ reporters, Anna Sargent, and Finn Blackwell, report back after attending the Christchurch and Auckland dawn services.

52 All Blacks served in World War I, and 13 didn't return home.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will today attend the Anzac Day National Commemoration Service at the National War Memorial in Wellington.

This Anzac Day could have a special poignancy for indigenous Australians. Thousands of them served in the First World War and other conflicts hoping it would help usher in greater equality at home. Those hopes have never been fully realised but later this year Australia will vote in a referendum on whether to amend the country's constitution to enshrine a voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Wesley Enoch is an acclaimed aboriginal playwright and theatre director and he's a strong supporter of the referendum.

Earlier this morning Turkey's ambassador to New Zealand Omur Unsay attended the dawn service here at the National War Memorial. Her country's story of resistance as they defeated Allied forces at Gallipoli in 1915 is well known but what is perhaps less familiar is what happened to Turkey in the years that followed. After the end of the First World War in 1918 British, French, Italian and Greek forces occupied Constantinople - now called Istanbul. A Greek army invaded from the west and drove deep into the heart of mainland Turkey. Out of this chaos a Turkish nationalist movement emerged to fight a war of Independence which by 1923, they had won. And this October marks the one hundredth birthday of the Turkish Republic.

The Anzacs tasted nothing but defeat at Gallipoli but later on New Zealand soldiers were involved in victories over what was then the Ottoman Empire. One such place was the Sinai desert - which sits at the eastern edge of Egypt next to Israel. From April 1916 to January 1917 New Zealand troops took part in a series of battles in Sinai which pushed the Turks back towards Gaza. Now, New Zealand soldiers operate in the same part of the world as peacekeepers. They've been there for 40 years as part of a multinational force to monitor compliance of the peace treaty between Israel and Eygpt, after a war between the two in 1973.

A Field of Remembrance consisting of 569 memorial crosses with the names of Maori service personnel killed in action and buried overseas has been laid and will remain in place after Anzac Day. The last surviving member of the 28 (Maori) Battalion, Ta Robert Gillies will present the 28 (Maori) Battalion Campaign and Battle Honours Memorial flag with the Battalions' 42 Campaign and Battles Honours to the nation at Te Rau Aroha Museum of the Price of Citizenship where it will rest as a monument to the Battalions fallen Hoia who never returned home.

It's been a busy few years for Auckland lawyer David Stone. A curious question about his great uncle has led him on a years-long mission to reunite members of the Maori Battalion with their unclaimed medals. His work is paying off though. Over the past year, seven ceremonies have been held to reunite hundreds of whanau with more than a thousand unclaimed medals.

Earlier this morning Christchurch's Cathedral Square saw its first dawn service since the earthquake in 2011. The city's Mayor Phil Mauger was there.

After the 1915 Gallipoli campaign many of New Zealand's soldiers spent the next three years fighting in the trenches of northern France and Belgium and the French town of Le Quesnoy has a special significance. In 1918 our troops liberated the town from four years of German occupation and it will soon house New Zealand's first memorial museum for Kiwi soldiers who died in Europe during World War One. An Anzac commemoration ceremony was held at Le Quesnoy on Sunday and Jude Dobson was there to film it.

Defence Minister Andrew Little is at Gallipoli to lead the New Zealand delegation at the Anzac Cove dawn service.

About ten thousand New Zealand horses served in the First World War but only four made it home. One of them was Dolly who was the war horse of the decorated Hawke's Bay soldier Sir Andrew Russell, whose statue stands in the Civic Square in Hastings. The city's mayor, Sandra Hazlehurst, says a fundraising effort is underway to erect a statue of Dolly to stand alongside that of Sir Russell's.