With the House of Windsor suffering its 1992 "annus horribilis", the republican cause became widely supported in the nation's newspapers, but Keating's comments about the flag and Britain's war record outraged groups like the Returned Services League (RSL), whose membership still consisted of veterans of the First and Second World Wars, and a ban on republicans from entering their clubs was announced for ANZAC Day 1992. The opposition and many observers called Keating's comments insensitive on the basis of such factors as the sinking of HMS "Prince of Wales" and HMS "Repulse" in the defence of Singapore. RSL President, Brigadier Alf Garland, called Keating "an Irish republican bigot". On 27 April 1992, Keating visited Kokoda in a conspicuous effort to shift Australia's war remembrance focus away from our role in assisting Britain at Gallipoli and in Europe in the First World War and towards Australia's Pacific War effort, and the New Guinea Campaign which saw Australian soldiers halt the advance of Japanese troops.