War memorials vary a lot

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

In reply to a query from Barbara Barwick as to why there are different postures for the soldiers depicted on the Patutahi and Gisborne war memorials.

There is an excellent book on the subject of New Zealand’s war memorials by Jock Phillips titled “To the Memory”.

It covers memorials from the New Zealand Land Wars to the present day, and is very well illustrated with photos from one end of the country to the other.

It shows the style of war memorials varies enormously, as does the depiction of soldiers.

Each town chose to commemorate the fallen in different ways, with no expense spared to have statues hand-carved from stone in Italy.

One theme is a soldier guarding a fallen comrade; another is a soldier with head bowed, standing at “rest on arms” with what is known as a reversed rifle.

The soldier is shown with the rifle upside down, the muzzle resting on his left boot, with hands clasped across the butt or shoulder rest.

To this day soldiers of many nations still parade and march with reversed arms as a sign of respect or mourning, although the practice has become difficult as full-length rifles have been replaced with much shorter, automatic weapons.

Roger Handford