More than 100,000 people stood in silence outside the Australian War Memorial in Canberra in the dark, 100 years after the landing at Gallipoli.
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The words of long-dead servicemen and women, in letters and diary entries read by military personnel, echoed across the crowd.
"If Gallipoli was a cry, it was one long cry," one said.
Another soldier wrote back to his wife describing the horrors of war.
"Hilda, it is horrifying to see how the young men are buried," he wrote.
On the centenary of the landing of Anzac troops in Gallipoli, a huge crowd attended the ACT dawn service to commemorate their sacrifice.
Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson said the estimated 120,000 people - more than double the 50,000 that had been predicted - was 80,000 more than last year.
"It fills me with pride that so many people have come to commemorate Anzac Day, on this most significant national occasion, at the Australian War Memorial," Dr Nelson said.
Meanwhile in Sydney, a record 30,000 people turned out for the Dawn Service in Martin Place and more than 80,000 came to the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.
Just before 6am the Last Post rang out as the sun rose behind the War Memorial.
Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison spoke in tribute to Australia's soldiers who fought in wars across the world over the past century.
"They were from fate and bloody circumstance, Anzacs by name, but more essentially men and women changed forever by war," he said.
"We have not forgotten them, and we are defined at least in part by that act of remembrance. It makes us who we are and reminds us, in the face of an unknown future, who we can be."
Janine Pearce, 55, of Queensland, said she and her husband had driven six days to get to the service.
"Both of my grandfathers fought in the First World War, one was in France, one was in Egypt, and that's the reason that we decided to come down," she said. "The service was very moving ... It's great to see everybody here and that the tradition carries on."
Ryan Pilkington, 33, said he had brought his nine-year-old son and six-year-old daughter from Moss Vale in NSW so they could see the centenary service.
"We have to pay our respects to soldiers who have gone," he said. "It's part of what makes Australia the way it is... [children] need to get the idea of why we have the freedoms we do in Australia."
The Dawn Service commenced with an Indigenous naval rating, Alan Patterson, playing the didgeridoo from the memorial's parapet.
