Two Southland households each lost four sons, writes Andrew Stone in the final part of our series.
New Zealand shed gallons of blood for Britain in the Great War.
Hardly a community in New Zealand was not touched by loss. In a few households the war ripped apart the family fabric in ways that seem inconsolable.
In Southland two families living 35km apart each lost four sons during the war.
Five boys of Riverton bootmaker Joseph Hunter and his wife Jane went away. Four never returned. John, their fifth son, came home injured from gunshot wounds but survived for 50 years. The Hunters were a large, working-class Maori family. The boys were locally educated.
The Christophers of Invercargill also suffered grievously. They, too, lost four sons to the war.
The Christophers were middle-class southern folk. Bank manager Anthony Christophers sent his sons to Southland Boys High. One by one during the war he learned of their deaths - one son a year between 1915 and 1918.
Two families, eight soldiers who all perished - terrible crosses for families to bear.
According to his service records, Joseph Hunter was half an inch too short for enlistment. But the Riverton labourer was put in uniform and assigned to the Otago Infantry Battalion. His brother David joined about the same time as a trooper with the Otago Mounted Rifles.
Private Joseph Hunter left Wellington in February 1915 with the 3rd reinforcements. David Hunter left in April, with the 4th reinforcements. They were bound for Gallipoli.
Joseph had a near-miss when a bullet grazed his chin. His service ended on 10 August, killed on Chunuk Bair, where his name is listed on the memorial to the missing.
David Hunter lasted 11 more days until he was reported missing in action. A board of inquiry declared the sawmill hand was killed in action on August 21. His name can be found at Quinn's Post cemetery.
Lineman Harry Hunter enlisted in January 1917 and sailed for Europe six months later. He joined the Otago regiment as a machine-gunner. After further training at Sling Camp, the NZ base in Salisbury, he was sent to France. His records show he died in early December, killed in action during grim trench fighting in the mud at Polygon Wood in Flanders.
Reginald Gillon Christopher.
William was the fourth Hunter boy killed in the war. News of his death on October 23, 1918, in France came 10 months after the family learned that the young soldier had been awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. The news made the Western Star, the Riverton paper, which quoted Defence Minister Sir James Allen in February 1918 congratulating the family for the distinction. The citation stated that Private Hunter, whose task was to carry messages forward on the battlefield when communication lines had been destroyed, bravely got though intense artillery attack to deliver dispatches.
A different tone was struck in a newspaper article on William Hunter's fate.
The extract, which appears in a display about the family in Te Hikoi Southern Journey, Riverton's museum, notes: "The family have had their share of sorrow, and they will have the greatest sympathy of the residents in their bereavement."
A fifth Hunter boy, John, returned seriously injured from three years' war service to a home without brothers. He had served with distinction, awarded the Military Medal for courageously leading a team of stretcher-bearers in no man's land on the Western Front.
Like many New Zealand towns, Riverton has a memorial to its war casualties. There are 80 names, including the Hunter boys, inscribed on four marble plaques at the base of the hilltop monument, which overlooks Riverton harbour. The Invercargill Christophers also farewelled four sons to fight in World War I.
Victor James Christophers.
Herbert Henry, youngest son of Anthony and Juliet, was a draughtsman with the railways in Ohakune when war was declared. He wasted no time enlisting and left New Zealand with the Samoan Advance Party on August 15, 1914. Struck down with dengue fever, Bert returned to recover and marry Mary Dodds. The couple had just a few months together before he embarked a second time, bound this time for France.
Victor, the second youngest son, left New Zealand with the NZEF main body. On May 31, 1915, at No 2 Outpost on the Gallipoli Peninsula, the Otago Mounted Rifles gunner was taken down. Author Terry Kinloch's book Echoes of Gallipoli quotes fellow soldier William Pyle as saying the death of Vic Christophers had been hard on his mates.
"He was one of the best chaps I ever knew & us fellows who were pals of his are very cut up ... " The 27-year-old was buried at a cemetery which carries the name of where he fell.
A year later, almost to the day, the newly promoted Captain Bert Christophers was killed in action at the Somme on June 2, 1916. He was buried in a military cemetery in Armentieres.
In April 1917 Julian Anthony Christophers, a stock and station manager who had a wife and young daughter, sailed with the 25th reinforcements.
He, too, went to the front. Serving with the Canterbury Infantry Regiment, Private Christophers was grievously wounded in Flanders on December 5, 1917. The 33-year-old did not last the day and was buried in Belgium's Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery.
His records include a note that he was classified unfit for service "in and beyond New Zealand" but adds that "it is evident a mistake was made by the medical officer".
Julian's death delayed the departure of Lieutenant Reg Christophers, the fourth son. The married Dargaville surveyor had entered camp in June 1917, with the 34th reinforcements. He was put in charge of a machine gun unit, which excelled with its accurate fire. Instead of sailing with the 34ths, Lieutenant Christophers left Wellington with the 38th reinforcements.
Julian Anthony Christophers.
Attached to the Otago Infantry Regiment, the 36-year-old father of two crossed the English Channel for France in September 1918, as the war was coming to a close. On October 13, the 36-year-old soldier, the eldest of the brothers, was shot in the neck. He died the same day and was buried at Beaulencourt British Cemetery.
In Invercargill, Anthony and Juliet Christophers received the heartwrenching news that their surviving son had become, like his brothers, a casualty of the war. The Christchurch Press reported: "News has been received that Lieutenant Reginald Gillon Christophers, eldest son of Mr A. Christophers, Invercargill had died of wounds."
If there was any consolation for the devastated family it might have been the knowledge that all the boys had known graves.
One in six soldiers died
One in six New Zealanders who answered the call to arms in World War I died between 1914 and 1918.
The exact total is uncertain as different casualty figures appear in official accounts. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage's website nzhistory.net has pulled together estimates, which range from 16,302 - the initial figure for New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) personnel who died between August 5, 1914, and November 12, 1918, revised in 1920 to 16,697 - to the current official figure of 18,052.
This total includes those who died in New Zealand and overseas, up to August 31, 1921, and six individuals added last year after a review of military files.
The nzhistory.net site, using the 98,950 NZEF personnel total and the revised historical figure of 16,697 deaths, records that 16.9 per cent of service personnel died during the war years.
One of the soldiers granted recognition last year was Sapper Robert Hislop, now considered New Zealand's first World War I casualty. The young soldier died after falling off the Parnell Railway Bridge in August 1914 while on guard duty.
His place in history was confirmed after a campaign by his great-niece Sue Atkins, research by Auckland War Museum collection manager Sarndra Lees, and reports which formed part of this Herald series.
Last year Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Tim Keating said it was important the additional soldiers are formally recognised for their sacrifice in service.
