Explore the Memorial | Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park, Sydney

The Anzac Memorial is both a work of art and a remarkable piece of architecture. The artist was George Rayner Hoff, an English sculptor who had migrated to Sydney in the 1920s. Rayner Hoff had served in the Royal Engineers as a map maker in France during the Great War and in Germany with the army of occupation. His collaboration with the Australian architect Charles Bruce Dellit on the Anzac Memorial is seamless. It is impossible to identify where the work of the artist ends and that of the architect begins. It is one of the finest surviving examples of art deco style in Australia.

On this day

3 June

1942 — Battle of MIDWAY began. This decisive victory by the US Navy over the Japanese Navy shifted the balance of sea power in the Pacific and forced Japan to abandon plans to attack New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa. Japanese losses were 4 aircraft carriers, 1 cruiser, 248 aircraft, and over 3,000 sailors. American losses were 1 aircraft carrier, 1 destroyer, 150 aircraft, and 307 men

1944 — 78 Squadron, RAAF, carried out the last major air combat by the RAAF in WW2, off BIAK Island, New Guinea. 10 enemy planes were shot down for the loss of one Australian plane and pilot

1969 — HMAS MELBOURNE collided with USS FRANK E EVANS in the South China Sea. EVANS was cut in half and 74 of her crew were killed