Lest We Forget

Wednesday 11 November 2026 marks 108 years since the end of hostilities in World War I. The annual RSLWA service of remembrance will take place from 1030 am at the State War Memorial in Kings Park.

This event commemorates the end of the first modern world conflict that occurred on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. In this conflict over 7000 West Australian services members were killed in action or died of wounds or illnesses.

As in previous years the RSLWA Poppy Ladies have been busy planting hundreds of knitted and crocheted poppies around the State War Memorial Precinct. The adoption of red poppies as a symbol of remembrance was inspired by the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ by Canadian soldier and physician John McCrae.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium