Very many surviving veterans suffered from "shell shock" (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) after their return from the battlefields and a lot of returned soldiers found it hard to adjust once more to normal day-to-day civilian life. .
Back home in Australia the 25th of April had already officially been named ANZAC Day. The earliest ANZAC Days were marked with sports events and ceremonies and during the rest of the war were also used for enlistment campaigns and rallies. By the 1930s the rituals we associate today with ANZAC Day, such as dawn vigils, marches and memorial services, had become part of the new tradition of this commemorative day.
In 1939 World War Two broke out and Australia and her Allies went to war against Germany and the other Axis powers. The Second World War proved to be much more devastating than the last war. By the time Germany and Japan had been defeated, countless millions of soldiers and innocent civilians around the world had been killed on battlefields, in prisoner of war and concentration camps, during bombing raids and simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting caught in the crossfire. .
Even Australian civilians were killed when the Japanese air force dropped bombs in Darwin, Broome and other Australian towns. Australia lost more than 39,000 servicemen and women. After the Second World War came the Korean War (1950 to 1953) and the Vietnam War (1962 to 1973). A further 859 Australian soldiers died and another 3674 were wounded in these two wars. .
Since then, all Australian soldiers lost in conflicts and wars have been included in memorial services on ANZAC Day, although the date remains the same to mark Australia's first devastating military campaign.
.
On ANZAC Day, which is a public holiday, commemorative services are held at dawn. Later in the day, servicemen and women from all over Australia join in marches while others visit war memorials.