Travellers from Australia and New Zealand joined Turkish and other dignitaries at the former World War I battlefields at Gallipoli for a solemn service at dawn.

As the sun rose, participants held a minute of silence to reflect on the sacrifices of tens of thousands of soldiers from the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, known as Anzacs, who landed at the beaches at Gallipoli, in north-west Turkey.

It was the first service since 2019 to take place in Gallipoli due to COVID-19 restrictions.

"At this time 107 years ago, on ships that covered the ocean off this tiny bay, thousands of Australians and New Zealanders were preparing to land on this rugged coast," the New Zealand army chief, Major General John Boswell, said during the ceremony.

"For all but a few, this was to be the first experience of the horrors of combat."

"Most were convinced that, as one New Zealand soldier wrote in his story: 'It will be the greatest day in our lives.' The sunrise they witnessed that day was, for all too many, to be the last they ever saw," he continued.

The Gallipoli campaign aimed to secure a naval route from the Mediterranean Sea to Istanbul through the Dardanelles, and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war.

The April 25, 1915 landings marked the start of a fierce battle that lasted for eight months.

More than 44,000 Allied soldiers and 86,000 Ottoman soldiers died.

The battlefields and cemeteries at the site in Canakkale, in north-western Turkey, have become a place for pilgrimage for many Australians and New Zealanders, many of whom sleep on the beaches until the start of the dawn service.

But the ongoing coronavirus pandemic kept the number of visitors small.

Among those who made it to the ceremony was 27-year-old Taylor Murphy from Victoria, Australia, who said the pros of being at Gallipoli "outweigh the cons of the pandemic."

"It feels quite surreal to be here," she said.

AP/Reuters