Remembrance Service 2023

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Wimbledon High School held a remembrance service on Friday 10 November to commemorate Armistice Day and reflect upon those affected by war and conflict. The service followed the theme ‘Seeking Peace through Understanding’.

The Chamber Choir and A Cappella group performed moving renditions of ‘Introit – Faure’s Requiem’, ‘They are at Rest’ by E. Elgar and ‘Ashokan Farewell’ by J. Ungar.

Ms Parker led the Act of Remembrance, and the Last Post was sounded by Matilda in Year 9.

The closing reading came from Mr Turner, who read an address by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, given on 2nd September 1945:

“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at Peace. The Mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. I speak for the un-named brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster.

As I look back on the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear; when Democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that he has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mould victory. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in Peace what we won in War.

A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of Victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the War potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concept of War.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balance of power, Leagues of Nations all in turn failed leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we do not devise some greater and more equitable system Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advance in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

And so. today I report to you that your sons and daughters have served you well and faithfully with the calm, deliberate, determined spirit. They are homeward bound - take care of them.”

Thank you to all students and staff for joining us in this service of remembrance.