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Foreign Minister Winston Peters spoke at an Anzac Day service on Chunuk Bair yesterday and said there was no better place to honour New Zealand's war dead.
Mr Peters is representing the Government at this year's Gallipoli commemorations, and earlier addressed the dawn service at Anzac Cove.
On Chunuk Bair, the highest point on which the campaign was fought, Mr Peters said it was a hilltop of great significance in New Zealand history.
"It is a name that all New Zealanders should know and revere, for our young men died in their hundreds here, as worthy of legend as the heroes of ancient Troy, which lies across the Dardanelles from here," he said.
"New Zealanders held the slope for 36 hours. Reduced from 3000 men to 1300, and spent beyond human endurance, they were relieved by inadequate British reinforcements who were driven off the hill."
Mr Peters said when the New Zealand battalions were ordered to attack the hills, they knew death was more likely than survival.
"Yet they went forward without protest - 300 Aucklanders lost in 20 minutes, just 70 survivors from the Wellington battalion of 760 men."
Meanwhile, hundreds of Australians and New Zealanders gathered at New Zealand's War Memorial in London to commemorate Anzac Day with a dawn service.
It is the first dawn service to be held at the New Zealand memorial, at Hyde Park Corner, since it was dedicated in 2006.
- NZPA
