New Zealand tunnellers on the Western Front

Mayor of Arras Frederic Leturque and Sue Baker Wilson hold a pick head used by the New Zealand tunnellers in France. Photo / Christine Cornege

As the nation prepares to mark the centenary of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli, a solemn service last night marked the sacrifice paid by Kiwis beneath another World War I battlefield.

A delegation from the northern French town of Arras yesterday visited Waihi for the blessing of a foundation stone for a memorial to honour a special company that endured some of the most hellish and cramped conditions of the war.

More than 446 Kiwis served in the New Zealand Tunnelling Company - many of them labourers trading jobs in their local mines and railways for service on the Western Front - and 41 never came home.

The company had the tragic distinction of yielding the New Zealand Expeditionary Force's first death on the Western Front, while also being the first Kiwi company to arrive in France and the last to leave. Beneath Arras, the men spent long, dark days digging a vast underground military system housing kitchens, hospitals, headquarters and enough room for nearly 20,000 men.

The company also played a combat role in laying mines beneath nearby enemy lines, and "counter-mining" when their German counterparts tried to do the same.

"They stayed there on the frontline for two years, and were shot at, shelled, gassed and caught when caves fell in," Waihi Heritage Vision chairman Kit Wilson said.

"People seem to think of them as non-combatants, but it really was front-line service - these guys were fighting and they were fighting a nasty, dirty, war."

Mr Wilson said Waihi's 7.5m tall memorial, to be completed next year, symbolised the "calling home" of the spirits of the tunnellers who died.

Around 90 of the tunnellers came from Waihi, and the memorial's foundation stone had been brought from the Hauraki town's historic Martha mine, where many of them had worked before the war.

Another stone was laid by a delegation representing the handful of Cook Islanders who served alongside the tunnellers.

The French delegation included Arras Mayor Frederic Leturque, who brought with him a pick that had been used by the tunnellers, and Isabelle Pilarowski, director of the Wellington Carriere, a museum in Arras named after the underground quarry used in the war.

Mr Wilson said another monument, The Earth Remembers, would be finished for the centenary of the Battle of Arras in April 2017.