Military records help to explain the unspoken for Christina Carruthers' Rotorua whanau

Just over 100 years ago in March 1918, Lance Corporal Hoani Jack Hakaraia marched into camp at Etaples, France, in the northern-most province of Pas-de-Calais.

Before World War I the town's population was a little over 5000 but it had become the biggest Allied base camp for the wounded and soldiers on their way to the Western Front.

When the tall, slim, former labourer from Rotorua arrived, the Etaples camp accommodated 60,000 to 80,000 soldiers at any one time.

Hakaraia's military records show he spent most of 1918 fighting in France, and at age 24 returned home to Ohinemutu.

Among Hakaraia's many descendants is his granddaughter Christina Carruthers.

Christina Carruthers with a photo of her koro Jack Hakaraia. Photo / Ben Fraser

"He did not speak of the war," she told the Rotorua Daily Post.

"We only knew he went to war because Mum mentioned it."

Carruthers wanted to know more and has since collected copies of her koro's records from the New Zealand Defence Force.

For her, one of the most interesting aspects is Hakaraia's medical notes.

"He had pneumonia and bronchitis from the gunpowder. He spent a lot of time sick."

Carruthers remembers that her mother's father "always coughed" after the war.

Respiratory illness has been a common theme in the family's generations since.

Carruthers' mother also had asthma, Carruthers has it herself, and so do her grandchildren.

In 2016 Carruthers and all the kaumatua in her whanau visited the Great War Exhibition in Wellington created by Sir Peter Jackson.

It included a model of the troopship Willochra.

"My aunty cried when she saw it. 'That is what my dad was on,' she said."

Hakaraia, of Ngati Tura descent, was married on New Year's Eve in 1914, age 20.

His military records show that he and his wife Manuku Hingawaka had two daughters before he went to war as part of the Maori Contingent, 23rd Reinforcements.

Carruthers grew up in a house next door to her koro's.

"He was a lot more strict than our grandma and he was quite regimented and into routine. That was probably from the army. When they had 6pm closing at Lake House every day he would go at 5pm for a drink. He would sing and get free beer."

Carruthers has told her own mokopuna as much as she can about her koro.

He was awarded the British War Medal 1914-1918 and the Victory Medal, and Carruthers' grandchildren will wear them at today's services as they do every year.