Ordinary people, extraordinary deeds

By CATHERINE MASTERS

They were ordinary men and women who together made up an extraordinary generation.

As New Zealanders gather today to remember the war dead, they celebrate the deeds of people who never think of themselves as heroes.

People who signed up to serve their country and did it the best they could.

People like Ray Beehre.

There was nothing glamorous about his war.

Born during World War I, he served in the bloody battle of Crete in World War II.

He signed up for adventure, and wound up working a delousing Machine in Egypt.

He went sightseeing around the pyramids of Giza and the Acropolis of Athens, then saw death in Crete where the bodies of German paratroopers, machinegunned as they descended, lay strewn on the ground.

He went abroad for freedom and adventure, and ended up captive in a German prisoner of war camp. At times he thought of home ... and found it changed when he returned.

He returned unharmed, yet for the rest of his life suffered the physical effects of war.

Even at 85, he says he would do it all again if he was asked to, for the right cause.

"You've got to answer the call to your country, don't you?"

Mr Beehre, of Onehunga, Auckland, was one of tens of thousands of New Zealanders, from all walks of life, who signed up in World War II. At the war's height, nearly 75,000 New Zealanders were serving overseas.

In July 1942, this small country had 154,549 people mobilised.

In World War I, 18,500 New Zealanders were killed. A generation later, 11,600 servicemen and women died in World War II.

These were ordinary men and women, who found themselves caught up in extraordinary times.

Today, the Herald meets one man. Not a hero, not a general, not a VC recipient, just a good New Zealander.

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Feature: Anzac Day

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