Lest we forget

By AINSLEY THOMSON, KATHRYN CALVERT and ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

They stand in the centre of every small town and every city, stark reminders of the pain and loss of war. These are stories behind the war memorials:

It is the angel that has watched over generations of Far North soldiers since the horrors of Gallipoli.

The marble statue perching high above Kaitaia's cenotaph was the country's first memorial to commemorate the soldiers who did not return from World War I.

This morning at dawn relatives of those soldiers gathered below the angel alongside returned servicemen and others who wish never to forget the sacrifices made.

The nightmare of Gallipoli had barely passed and New Zealand soldiers still faced almost three years at the Western front when in 1916 local kaumatua Leopold Busby began to organise the memorial.

His great-nephew Hector Busby, himself now a kaumatua, said Leopold's son returned from the war but so many soldiers from the area were lost he thought something should be done to honour them.

It was a battle itself to have the statue erected. The Post Office would not give the land wanted, the Government said they should wait until the end of the war and critics said the marble angel would not last. But Hector said his uncle persisted, writing a letter to the Minister of Defence, and in March 1916 the statue was unveiled.

The inscriptions around the base of the statue, in Maori and English, reflect conflicting emotions expressing the community's deep sadness at "the terrible war" and their pride in "our brave lads who upheld the names of your noble ancestors".

Former Kaitaia RSA president Norm Armiger said the statue was essential to the community.

The memorial has been extended around the angel to commemorate the other wars involving New Zealand soldiers.

"The war memorial grows with each conflict, unfortunately," said Mr Armiger.

The Far North, which lost more than 600 soldiers, has many heroes. One of the most famous is Mr Armiger's cousin, Flying Officer Lloyd Trigg, believed to be the only soldier awarded the Victoria Cross on the evidence of the Germans.

Trigg, a local school teacher with two young sons, was killed in 1943 but his heroism moments before dying earned him the VC.

Trigg was attacking a German submarine when his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. With his plane in flames he continued to attack the submarine, eventually sinking it.

Mr Armiger said he is surprised at how many children now attend the Anzac Day dawn service. For this community which built the country's first memorial the determination to remember those who did not return lives on.

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You can see the faces of the dead - some starchy stiff in their uniforms, others smiling at the future - down Stratford's main street.

Inside the Hall of Remembrance in the Taranaki town's former borough council chambers are the portraits of 129 servicemen who perished in World War I and 55 who died in World War II.

It is a unique and startling record of war and its losses in this small town visited by death again and again.

The people decided to gather photographs during the first war of 1914-18 in the midst of the telegrams telling of deaths in foreign lands.

"As far as I know, our Hall of Memories is unique," said Stratford RSA president Allan Rinaldi.

Every day someone comes to visit. To look at the faces, to remember or maybe just wonder at what led these young men to their death.

Said Mr Rinaldi: "People come and go from the hall all the time, and it's pleasing to know that those servicemen are not forgotten."

About 200 servicepeople from the Stratford district died in combat, and crosses with red poppies are erected each year at the Cross of Sacrifice near the RSA rooms.

Posies are also placed on each war grave at Stratford Cemetery, as well as wreaths at the Memorial Gates and Malone Gates, which date back to the 1920s and serve as a tribute to Stratford's most famous wartime son, Lieutenant Colonel William Malone of the Wellington West Coast Battalion, who died at Chunuk Bair.

Even today people remember the words he wrote to his wife from the summit of Chunuk Bair: "I am prepared for death and hope that God will have forgiven me all my sins."

According to research by Graham Hucker, a senior lecturer at Massey University who has studied the effects of war on rural communities, the idea for photographs in a Hall of Remembrance dates from 1917 - year of the slaughter of Passchendaele - when the mayor, John McMillan, believed the soldiers deserved more than just a name on a roll.

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The dramatic bronze statue in the middle of Te Aroha shows a soldier poised for a bayonet attack. But while the stance is aggressive, there is fear on the young digger's face.

It seems to represent some of what the small Waikato community must have felt when it farewelled patriotic men bound for war on the other side of the world.

Te Aroha, which now has a population of about 4000, lost a disproportionate number of its sons - one-sixth of its men were wiped out in World War I. The memorial to the 100 dead soldiers was unveiled in 1923.

Several decades and another world war later, a new memorial was needed. A stone's throw from the bronze figure is an imposing clock tower with 75 names on a roll of honour. The inscription reads: "Erected by a grateful public to commemorate the great sacrifice and service of the men of Te Aroha and district who gave their lives in the Second World War."

Statue and clock tower are a poignant and very public reminder of sad times in the history of a town better known for its hot springs and mineral water.

Today, those taking part in the mid-morning Anzac Day parade will gather around the two memorials, as they do every year. In the cemetery, more than 500 posies of flowers have been carefully laid on the graves of soldiers who, unlike their fallen colleagues, returned home to try to pick up their lives.

At the time, war appeared glamorous and heroic to Te Aroha District Museum treasurer Lou Rogers, 78, who joined the Air Force at 18. Locals were told to expect casualties, "and we did", he said. "You just had to accept it and carry on. It was hammered into us that you did it for your country. But what a wicked waste it was."

Herald Feature: Anzac Day

Highlights of the 2002 Anzac photo exhibition: