New Zealand Defence Force
Te Ope Kaatua O Aotearoa

Media Release

10 July 2007

NZ Defence Force Remembers Passchendaele

The Vice Chief of the New Zealand Defence Force, Air Vice Marshal David Bamfield, will join representatives of Commonwealth and European countries at a major ceremony to be held on Thursday 12 July at Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium.

The ceremony, which is one of a number of remembrance activities being held in Belgium in 2007, will commemorate the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Passchendaele. The ceremony will be attended by the Governor-General of New Zealand the Honorable Anand Satyanand and New Zealand Defence Force personnel from London.

Air Vice Marshal Bamfield said, “The Battle of Passchendaele was one of the bloodiest of World War I. October 12 1917 was the most disastrous day in New Zealand’s military history. In just two hours more than 800 men were killed and over 2000 wounded in this horrendous frontal assault.”

The 1917 Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) was one of the major battles of World War I, fought by British, ANZAC and Canadian soldiers against the German Army. The aim of the battle was to break through the German defences and capture Passchendaele Ridge then drive north to the Belgian coast and capture the German submarine bases there. After three months of fierce fighting the town was finally taken by the Canadian forces, but the allies suffered almost half a million casualties, and the Germans almost a quarter of a million.

Allied soldiers who lost their lives at Passchendaele are commemorated at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing and at the Tyne Cot and neighbouring Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries. Tyne Cot is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the world with nearly 12,000 graves, including 519 New Zealanders, 322 of them unidentified.

Before the official ceremony, the Tyne Cot Visitors Centre will be officially opened. The centre will provide information about the Battle of Passchendaele and about the cemetery itself.

The Seraphim Choir of Chilton Saint James School, Lower Hutt will perform prior to the service.

The ceremony will end with a shower of poppies being scattered from an historical biplane.

ENDS

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