Poppy Pack remembers New Zealand’s worst disaster

EMBARGOED UNTIL NOON 19 JULY 2007

MEDIA RELEASE
July 19, 2007

Poppy Pack remembers New Zealand’s worst disaster

All New Zealanders, including those travelling to cheer on the All Blacks in Europe later this year, are being urged to buy a commemorative Poppy Pack, launched today (19 July), to mark the 90th anniversary of the worst disaster in New Zealand’s history.

The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association (RNZRSA) Poppy Packs were unveiled today at Ponsonby Rugby Club, home club of revered 1905 All Black captain Dave Gallaher who was killed at the outset of the battle and is buried at Nine Elms Cemetery.

He was one of 10 All Blacks killed on the Western Front during World War I. Gallaher’s granddaughter and two of his great grandchildren attended the launch along with current All Black, Anton Oliver, who has visited Gallaher’s grave. Fred Allen, the legendary former All Black captain, selector, and coach and World War II veteran was also present.

On 12 October 1917, about 2,800 New Zealanders were killed, wounded or listed as missing in a single day during the battle for the village of Passchendaele, near Ypres, in modern day Belgium.

The Passchendaele Poppy Packs contain authoritative information to help New Zealanders, young and old, understand the significance of our nation’s contribution to the Western Front campaign.

The packs details locations of key memorials and cemeteries in Europe, provide profiles of the All Blacks killed on the Western Front, outline the significance of the poppy, and provide further reading and useful websites to trace grave sites of fallen soldiers. Each Poppy Pack also contains six poppies to distribute and wear and four postcards of Western Front battle scenes to send to family and friends. One postcard is addressed to the RSA to provide feedback about the Passchendaele Poppy Pack.

RNZRSA president, John Campbell, says he hopes Kiwis will wear a poppy as they watch the All Blacks in Europe, whether they are at a stadium or following the games at home.

``On 12 October, New Zealanders can then place their poppies at Cenotaphs or war memorials in towns and cities throughout New Zealand and join in heart and mind with those making the pilgrimage to attend the 90th commemoration in Ypres, Belgium.

``Many of the young men buried in cemeteries in Europe are remembered at home as young soldiers in now-faded sepia photographs or as names listed alphabetically on local war memorials or cenotaphs.

``War and rugby are two areas in which New Zealanders have proven themselves on the world stage and this is personified by the 10 All Blacks killed on the Western Front in World War 1,’’ says John Campbell.

Passchendaele Poppy Packs are on sale for $30 and can be ordered through ANZ branches nationwide. It is hoped the packs will provide the focus for learning more about Passchendaele across a number of subject areas in the run-up to the October anniversary. Class sets of 20 packs are available for use in classroom study for $400.
RNZRSA Poppy Partner and pack sponsor Young & Lee Tours is likely to have more than 1,000 from its tour parties at the commemoration ceremonies in Ypres (Ieper) in October.

Proceeds from the sale of Poppy Packs will go to RNZRSA welfare funds to support veterans and their families.

ENDS

Photos available by Peter Bush:

1. Poppy Packs presented to NZRU assistant CEO Steve Tew for distribution to the NZRU provinces by Minister of Veterans Affairs, Hon Rick Barker and National President of the RNZRSA, John Campbell – with the Dave Gallaher trophy in attendance.

2. All Black supporters laying wreaths at the Menin Gate in Belgium, November last year.

3. Dave Gallaher’s grave in Belgium.

COMMENTS

Hon Annette King – in June 2007 Annette King attended the unveiling of a plaque at Messines in Belgium where Blackball miner Samuel Frickleton earned his Victoria Cross. The Frickleton plaque is part of the 90th commemoration of Passchendaele and was an emotional time for Annette King and those who were with her.

“It was an extremely emotional occasion, seeing the poppies in the field at Flanders, New Zealand flags fluttering from the windows of so many houses in Messines and West Flanders, the unveiling the plaque to Samuel Frickleton and listening to the school children of Messines singing the New Zealand national anthem”, Annette King.

Aileen Serjeant – in November 2006, Aileen and her husband Roger were members of the Young and Lee Tours All Black supporters trip to England, France and Wales. The tour included a visit to the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium where the rugby supporters laid a wreath. For Aileen the visit was poignant as in 1917 her grandfather was listed as missing presumed killed on the Western Front.

“Roger and I found the whole experience in Ypres absolutely amazing and very emotional. The singing of the National Anthem in Maori and English actually at the Menin Gate being the most poignant, even thinking of that moment today brings tears to my eyes”, Aileen Serjeant.

BACKGROUNDER
By Dr Ian McGibbon, War Historian and Author

Passchendaele – New Zealand’s worst national disaster

The First World War’s Western Front is a place of great importance to New Zealanders. Thousands of New Zealanders fought there in often atrocious conditions for two and a half years from 1916 to 1918. More died than in the six years of the Second World War.

This tragic campaign is usually overshadowed by Gallipoli in the New Zealand imagination today. Anzac Day, the day of the epic landing on that rugged and hostile peninsula, naturally focuses attention on New Zealand’s participation in the ANZAC. The fighting in France and Belgium, though much more important in the context of the war and far more deadly than the battles with the Turks in the Mediterranean, is much less familiar to most New Zealanders.

When the New Zealanders arrived on the Western Front in 1916, they found themselves a tiny cog in a vast war machine - the New Zealand Division was one of 60 divisions in the British Expeditionary Force alone and there were even more French divisions. This massive force manned a line that snaked 700 kilometres from Switzerland to the Belgian coast, a line that had hardly moved in more than a year.

Five months after they joined this gigantic fight, the New Zealanders were thrown into the Battle of the Somme. In just twenty-three days they lost more than 2000 men killed (compared with 2700 in the whole of the Gallipoli campaign). The scale of the artillery and machine-gun fire was a shock to the New Zealanders who had been at Gallipoli.

But worse was to come. During 1917 the New Zealanders became involved in operations in Belgium – the defence of the notorious Ypres salient, one of the most blood-soaked areas on the planet. Some 800,000 men - mainly British and Germans but including French, New Zealanders, Canadians, Belgians and many other nationalities - died fighting in the salient during four years of war. The defence of the town of Ieper (as it is known today) was vital to the Allied cause. Its fall would jeopardise the British effort on the Western Front.

New Zealand troops fought in this sector for eight months, enduring a bitter winter. But it is three occasions when the troops went ‘over the top’ that dominate New Zealand memories of the fighting in Belgium in 1917. Two were successful (at least by the standards of the First World War), the other the worst disaster to befall New Zealand in terms of lives lost on a single day. On 7 June the New Zealand Division helped capture the Messines ridge in an operation conspicuous for its careful preparation and efficient execution, though even successful battles on the Western Front were invariably costly in lives. More than 700 New Zealanders perished, most of them cut down by artillery fire after they had seized their objective. Another 275 men fell in the second successful attack - at Passchendaele on 4 October.

Eight days later, in a new push at Passchendaele, more than 840 men were killed or mortally wounded in an attack that failed completely - the blackest day in New Zealand’s military history. Passchendaele is today a name that evokes the horror of futile sacrifice, of men struggling to advance in a quagmire, of loss on an unimaginable scale.

In these battles New Zealand men, some barely out of their teens, others middle aged, displayed courage on a scale difficult to imagine today. Their devotion to duty was exceptional, nowhere more so than in the catastrophe on 12 October. Undaunted by the odds against them, men sacrificed themselves in determined efforts to breach the barbed wire that barred their way forward. Their courage under fire in the most adverse of circumstances deserves to be better known to New Zealanders. That is the objective of the Passchendaele Poppy Pack.

Some 846 New Zealanders were killed on this one morning and a further 2000 were wounded. Another 138 New Zealanders died of their wounds over the next week. More New Zealanders were killed or maimed in these few short hours than on any other day in the nation’s history.

New Zealand’s efforts in Belgium are commemorated by battlefield memorials at both Messines and Passchendaele. On both are inscribed the words ‘From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth’. The victims of the battles, if their bodies were recovered, lie today in the immaculate cemeteries of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Many of the headstones are marked simply ‘Known unto God’. The bodies of one in every three of the dead were either never found or could not be identified. All those with no known grave are recorded on memorials to the missing, of which New Zealand has three in Belgium, the largest at Tyne Cot.

Two of the 10 All Blacks who lost their lives on the Western Front were among those who fell at Messines and Passchendaele. George Sellars, who was lost at Messines, is commemorated on the memorial to the missing there. Passchendaele claimed the life of David Gallaher, a Boer War veteran and captain of the Originals, the 1905 All Blacks. He died of wounds incurred in the first, successful, attack. His grave, in Nine Elms British Cemetery near the town of Poperinge, is not forgotten. Over the years, a number of All Black teams, starting with the 1924 Invincibles, have journeyed there to remember his sacrifice.

To visit the cemeteries and memorials in Belgium and France is to be reminded of the carnage in which ordinary New Zealanders became caught up 90 years ago. The stylized silver ferns that grace the headstones of New Zealand victims of the battles stand out for New Zealanders. The endless lists of the fallen inscribed on the memorials to the missing bring home the scale of the grief inflicted on families in their homeland, some of whom learned in the aftermath of Passchendaele that two, and in one case three, of their sons had been lost.

Messines and Passchendaele deserve to be as well known today as Gallipoli. At both, New Zealanders came face to face with the awful reality of modern warfare, they did their duty in the most atrocious circumstances and sacrificed themselves for their country. A visit to the battlefields of Belgium not only ensures that this sacrifice is remembered and honoured, but also provides an insight to one of the most important events in New Zealand’s history.

ENDS

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