Aussie war memorial to host London Anzac Day service

LONDON - Australia's war memorial at Hyde Park Corner will host London's Anzac Day dawn service on Saturday.

Australia's High Commissioner to the UK, John Dauth, said his compatriots and New Zealanders held Anzac Day very close to their hearts.

"You can see that in the numbers that attend the commemoration in London every year to pay their respects and to remember their countrymen's sacrifice," Mr Dauth said.

New Zealand High Commissioner Derek Leask said the service attracted not only Australian and New Zealand ex-service personnel, but people of all ages and nationalities.

"We are pleased to see the different generations attending the Anzac Day service each year," he said.

The Australian and New Zealand war memorials are opposite each other at Hyde Park Corner, and the London dawn service alternates between the two.

Wreaths are laid each year at both, and a wreath-laying parade and ceremony will also be held at the Cenotaph on Whitehall before a service at Westminster Abbey.

Hundreds of Australians in London have booked to travel across the English Channel to France for Anzac Day.

One group, First Festival Travel, decided to take about 100 Australian and New Zealanders from London after the huge success of last year's inaugural ceremony.

"People are becoming more aware of the Western Front and so many people are surprised that more soldiers died there than at Gallipoli," director Chris Wilson said.

"And I think a lot of people are looking for alternatives to going to the dawn service at Gallipoli because they have heard bad reports."

Another London tour group, The Fanatics, has hired a 60-seater coach for the trip to Villers-Bretonneux.

Spokesman Ben Parker said bookings had doubled this year and the company had turned away some people.

"This is our second year doing it and there's been a bit more interest this time around," he said.

"Last year, people had to take a day off work in London because the ceremony was on a Friday, but this year it's on the weekend so that might have made a difference."

Last year's dawn service at Villers-Bretonneux coincided with the 90th anniversary of a mammoth battle which saw Australian troops liberate the town from German soldiers and help turn the course of World War I.

This year's service will have a broader focus, honouring not only the 1200 Australians who died in the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux but every one of the 46,000 diggers who did not come home from the Western Front.

The French Secretary of State attached to Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs, Jean-Marie Bockel, will attend, with dozens of schoolchildren from Australia and locals from Villers-Bretonneux.

- AAP