Duke of Sussex meets Indigenous veterans at Australian War Memorial

The Duke of Sussex was welcomed by Indigenous veterans as he arrived at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Harry is attending a Last Post Ceremony at the memorial in the Australian capital on Wednesday afternoon.

He travelled from Melbourne to Canberra on a commercial Qantas flight, sitting in the front row, to the surprise of cabin crew who looked delighted to have the duke on board.

The Last Post Ceremony, held each evening since 2013, commemorates an individual serviceperson through storytelling, reflection and the sounding of the Last Post.

Following a reinterpretation of the legal constraints on the memorial’s scope, the Australian Frontier Wars between Indigenous Australians and mostly British settlers are to be included for the first time as part of a gallery planned to open in 2028.

The first conflicts of the Frontier Wars took place several months after the landing of the First Fleet in January 1788, and the last conflicts occurred in the early twentieth century, following the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901.

The memorial had previously argued that frontier fighting in Australia was outside its charter, as it did not involve Australian military forces.

This position received criticism from historians, who argued that such fighting should be commemorated at the memorial because it involved large numbers of Indigenous Australians and paramilitary or government-backed colonial forces.

In September 2022, the memorial’s outgoing chair, Brendan Nelson, announced it would work towards “a much broader, much deeper depiction and presentation of the violence committed against Indigenous people”.

The Australian War Memorial is the nation’s principal memorial to those who have served and died in war and on operational service, combining a shrine, museum, and archive.

Opened in 1941, it stands as both a place of remembrance and a centre for preserving Australia’s military history.

The Memorial features galleries dedicated to the world wars, with more than 1.4 million Australians serving in the armed forces across the First and Second World Wars.

More than 60,000 Australians died in the First World War, including thousands in the Gallipoli campaign to seize control of the Dardanelles from the Ottoman Empire.

Around one million Australians served in the Second World War, representing a massive mobilisation from a relatively small population.

All personnel of the Australian Defence Force swear an oath or make an affirmation of allegiance to the King in his role as the Australian monarch, pledging to serve Australia and, in the oath, to “resist His enemies”.