New Zealand Poppy Places Trust unveils six more Linton streets of significance

Retired Major Mike Pettersen has added these soldiers to his Main St fence for Armistice Day. Photo / Judith Lacy

"If I had to take hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it."

Warrant Officer Class One Lyall Mooney ended his presentation about the six new poppy places at Linton with this quote from World War II German field marshal Erwin Rommel.

The New Zealand Poppy Places Trust designates street signs, buildings, memorials and plaques to be marked with a poppy to denote a place's significance to the country's overseas military history.

Warrant Officer Class One Lyall Mooney's hat, gloves and staff wait for his departure from the Armistice Day service in Palmerston North. Photo / Judith Lacy

Mooney, Command Sergeant Major 1st (NZ) Brigade at Linton Military Camp, was talking at the end of the Armistice Day service in Palmerston North last Friday.

Tobruk St is a tribute to those involved in the battle for Tobruk in Libya in World War II.

Olympus Circle is a tribute to the New Zealand members of W force fighting in Greece during the same war.

Kupe Pl is named as a tribute to New Zealand Force South East Asia. It comprised elements of the Royal New Zealand Navy, New Zealand Army and Royal New Zealand Air Force. Much of the New Zealand military left Singapore as part of Operation Kupe in 1989, the return of the battalion from South East Asia to Linton Military Camp.

Kupe was a great Polynesian explorer.

Saigon Cl acknowledges New Zealand's participation in the Vietnam War and Nui Dat Pl
is a tribute to the Ist Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat and all service personnel who served in the Vietnam War.

Takrouna Grove acknowledges those involved in the battle of Takrouna, Tunisia, during World War II.

Poppy Places trustee John Masson travelled from Wellington for the launching of the latest streets of significance.

Mayor Grant Smith said poppy places were another way of saying "we will remember them".

The first poppy place at Linton was Anzac Ave. Eleven streets were announced in 2019, six in 2020 and six last year. Six more will be unveiled next year.

At the back of the Conference & Function Centre was a display about the Awapuni Mobilisation Camp. Ludolph West, who was born and educated in Palmerston North, arrived at the camp on August 17, 1914.

He became ill that night and died from pneumonia on August 25, aged 19. He is buried at Terrace End Cemetery. He was a draftsman.

The Ministry of Defence recognises West as the first New Zealand soldier to die in World War I, despite never leaving the country.

He was the son of Ludolph Georg West, an architect and the fifth mayor of Palmerston North.

Retired Major Mike Pettersen, who took part in the Armistice Day service, decorated his Main St fence for the occasion, when New Zealand marks the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
From Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Owen, an English soldier, was one of the leading poets of World War I. He was killed in action on November 4, 1918, a week before the war's end, at the age of 25.

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