Gallipoli’s second landing: the little-known ANZAC return

It’s become a rite of passage for young and old.

Over the past three decades, thousands of Australians have made the annual Anzac Day pilgrimage to the battlegrounds of Gallipoli to pay homage to the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who served and died on the peninsula in 1915.

That includes the 2,600 attendees who gathered at the memorial site last year (2025) to commemorate the 110^th anniversary of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign.

A regular occurrence since 1990, few of the visitors since will know of the first of such pilgrimages.

It was a much smaller, but hugely symbolic and emotional return to Anzac Cove, an occasion billed by press reports at the time as “Gallipoli – The Second Landing”.

In mid-April 1965, four planeloads of war veterans numbering around 300, many in their 70s, took off from Australia to pay their respects to fallen comrades at cemeteries and memorials dotted around Greece, Libya and Turkey.

About 200 of them had fought in the First World War and half of them at Gallipoli.

It was a trip made possible by the Returned Services League, Qantas and Commonwealth Bank, with the bank providing daily currency exchange and cashing of travellers’ cheques on the three-week long journey by ship around the Mediterranean.

ANZAC veterans welcomed as friends

For Kenneth Edmanson, a former branch manager in Tasmania and Papua New Guinea and subsequently head of the Australian Migrant and Financial Information Service at CBA’s London Office, it was a “great honour” to not only serve the veterans but also to represent the bank, from which 241 staffers fought in WW1, including some at Gallipoli.

Writing in CBA’s staff magazine Bank Notes in the August 1965 issue, Edmanson, who himself saw service in WW2, recalled: “An outstanding feature of our visit to Turkey was the deep respect that the Australians, New Zealanders and Turks have for one another, a comradeship despite the bitter fighting of the years gone by.”

And, as he remarked in his despatch, the Gallipoli veterans returned to the beaches at dawn on the 25th April, this time to be welcomed not by a hail of bullets and artillery fire but by hands of friendship as they disembarked from small boats onto a specially built jetty.

As a short service of remembrance took place ashore “we on board bowed our heads in humble but proud salute. The darkness disappeared and the Anzacs returned by the same small boats. It was their day and it was our privilege to be with them”.

A commitment to serve Australia

CommBank’s support for the 1965 pilgrimage is just one of the many examples of the bank’s commitment to serving the nation during times of conflict and beyond.

It’s a theme that runs throughout “Courage: An exhibition”, a new storytelling display that has opened at The Vault in South Eveleigh, Sydney, which houses the CBA group archives.

Among the artefacts are stories and photos of how CommBank became central to Australia’s war effort in WW1, little more than two years after the bank had first opened its doors in 1912 as “the bank for all Australians”.

It also includes a poignant digital honour roll of those bank staff who served and gave their lives in WW1 and WW2 – part of an extensive digitisation project of the archive’s content.

“As courage is one of the core values of the bank, we have long wanted to highlight how courage has shaped the foundation, decisions, innovations and the people at CBA for well over 100 years,” said Julianne Liddicoat, Curator at The Vault and the exhibition’s lead.

“That’s best told through real-life stories, especially those experiences of our staff over many decades of services who have led by example. Their passion, as underlined by their actions and deeds, is truly humbling and we hope we have done them credit in this exhibition.”

“Courage: An Exhibition” is now open at The Vault, CommBank Group Archives, 1 Davy Road, South Eveleigh, Sydney, NSW, and runs to April 2027. Visits by appointment which can be booked by emailing [email protected]