Members of the Panhellenic Association of Ex-Servicemen, alongside president George Rahovitsas, visited the Shepparton village of Lemnos, last Sunday, to celebrate OXI Day with the members of the local Greek Community and the Shepparton RSL.

After doxology was conducted at the St George church, a modest ceremony and wreath laying service followed at the Shepparton War Memorial.

Present at the event were MP for Dandenong John Pantazopoulos, MP for South Eastern Metropolitan Region Lee Tarlamis, the city mayor Jenny Houlihan, the president and senior official of the RSL Shepparton – Peter McPhee and Gavin Cator, president of the Greek Community Mr Sfetsas and historian Jim Claven.

In his speech, MP John Pantazopoulos stressed the importance of Greek national anniversaries like October 28, to be concelebrated with Australian veterans.

The name Lemnos, for a soldier settlement about 5 miles east of Shepparton, was suggested by Major (later Colonel) E.P. Hill at a public meeting of settlers held in the early 1920s.

Major Hill, like many other soldier settlers, had served on Gallipoli in the Great War (1914-1918), and had been on the Greek island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea, the base for the Gallipoli operation.
Around 2,200 Anzacs that spent time on Lemnos and fought on Gallipoli, came from the region of Shepparton.