KEY POINTS:
Dear Mr and Mrs Levien.
It is my sad duty to inform you that your son Trooper John Julian Levien registration number 11/75 was killed in action on the 5th day of August, 1915.
It's the sort of letter every parent dreaded in World War I, but what
made this even more heartbreaking was that the formal letter was written by the trooper's brother, Major Edward Levien of the Wellington Mounted Rifles.
His daughter Elizabeth Gunn recited the letter by heart to the Herald on the steps of the Auckland War Memorial Museum where she was attending the Anzac Day dawn service in Auckland yesterday.
Mrs Gunn said her father had been standing next to his 20-year-old brother when he was "blown to smithereens" at Chunuk Bair.
As a commanding officer Major Levien later had to write to their parents in New Zealand and advise them of John's death.
"It fell upon him to write the letter ... it was a formal letter so he could not even sign it off 'your loving son' - it was 'yours faithfully'."
Major Levien was wounded at Gallipoli (he was hit by gunshot in the right shoulder) and was out of action for six weeks before returning to the front line.
He survived the war and received the Military Cross, which Mrs Gunn wore at the service, for bravery while on a reconnaissance mission in Palestine.
Mrs Gunn came up to Auckland from Hastings to attend the dawn service.
She has been attending similar services for decades. As a child living in the Waikato, her family would go the service, enjoy hot milky coffee with rum at the local RSA, and then go home for a big cooked breakfast.
"The rest of the day was a family day. We did not sit around feeling melancholy but went out for a picnic,"aid.
"The time or remembrance was observed in the morning and then it was about what the war was fought for - families."
Mrs Gunn said her father died in 1962 and donated some of his belongings from the war "including his horse rug" to the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
Also at the service thinking of his father was Tamati Maguire, the son of Malaya veteran Sidney Maguire who died of heart failure at the service a year ago.
Mr Maguire said it felt "quite eerie" to be at the dawn service at the time his 62-year-old father had collapsed in the heavy rain a year before.
"I actually thought I saw him.
"I was wondering if he might come back ... it brought a tear to the eye."
Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard made special mention of Sidney Maguire and the "she'll be right mate" resilience of New Zealanders.
He said the service was not about glorifying war but about the courage of those who put their lives on the line.
The mild clear morning attracted young and old alike, and a crowd of about 12,000 attended the service. That was well up on the 8000 who braved pelting rain the year before.
Organiser Des Harrison said the perfect weather meant people with babies and the elderly in wheelchairs were able to take part. Even then, the service was too much for at least two people who fainted.
