"There is a lot more people because it was the 100th year and people really wanted to show their respect to all the people who have fought," said Christ Church Grammar School student Edward Rodda (13), who wore replica medals of his great-grandfather Colonel Denys Murphy, who was at the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey in 1915.
Cottesloe Mayor Jo Dawkins read from two World War I diaries her grandfather Frank Thompson brought home after he served with the Australian horse-drawn artillery and called British soldiers "Tommies".
He was on the Western Front in France from 1916.
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READ NOW"On February 27 he wrote,"One battery of Tommies skittled just in front of us" only about six men not hit out of 40, Mrs Dawkins said.
She paid tribute to former Cottesloe Star of the Sea Catholic Church priest and WA 11th Battalion chaplain John Fahey DSO and his cheeky attempts after World War I to diffuse rumours he had fired a rifle when all his officers had been killed at Gallipoli.
At Mosman Park, Mayor Ron Norris told the story of how Anzac got its name when a wooden box intended for the troops was quickly stencilled with the acronym before its transport overseas.
"So the name Anzac wasn't the result of any high-level negotiations between generals," he said.
"It was a storeman who laid the grounds for the grand tradition we mark today."
n Anzac Day picture gallery at www.communitynews.com.au.