30 April 2025
Standing beneath the slowly brightening skies over Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey, Captain Tahali Thomas of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals (RA Sigs) joined thousands of other Australian, New Zealander and international visitors in commemorating the 110th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings.
This year’s Anzac Day held a dual significance for Captain Thomas and her fellow signallers, also marking the 100th anniversary of the forming of the RA Sigs, founded to formalise and advance the Australian Army’s communication capabilities after the end of the first world war.
Commemorations were also attended by Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, as the Corps’ Colonel-in-Chief.
In Captain Thomas’ current posting, she is a defence student at Cranfield University in the UK, studying a Masters of Electronic Systems Engineering, with prior corps postings to 1 Combat Signal Regiment and 138 Signal Squadron. With her brother also a serving signaller in the Australian Army, the opportunity for Captain Thomas to lay a wreath on behalf of the corps at the Gallipoli Cenotaph was both a professional milestone and personal honour.
“I always said if I had the opportunity to attend, I would wish to in order to gain a better understanding of what our Anzac heroes experienced – and to stand on the same land that they fought for is a real privilege” Captain Thomas said.
Though formally established in 1925, the corps’ roots stretch back into the earliest days of the Gallipoli campaign, where signal engineers of the Australian Divisional Signal Company were among the first to come ashore on the morning of the April 25, 1915.
Throughout the campaign amid steep ridgelines, dense scrub and relentless enemy fire, they ran telephone wires, operated heliographs and signal lamps, and carried messages across exposed ground, among other duties to maintain lines of communication.
“It’s extremely impressive to see how the corps has developed over the last 100 years, and how 110 years ago at Gallipoli those foundations and core Army values established are reflective of what we have today,” Captain Thomas said.
Reflecting from Anzac Cove, the centenary also offered the opportunity to consider the past 100 years of service by the corps to the nation across many theatres in World War 2, Korea, Malaya, Vietnam and the many other past and present peacekeeping and humanitarian deployments, including contemporary operations in the Middle East Region.
