ANZAC Day

25 April is ANZAC Day. ANZAC stands for the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. This date marks the landing of ANZAC troops at Gallipoli in the First World War, which was the first major battle for New Zealand troops. More than 2 700 New Zealand troops died there. Interestingly Remembrance Day here is on a significant First World War date; whereas ours marks the Armistice at the end of the Second World War. As I have travelled around to the small communities in the south island I have been touched by the impact of the First World War and also the way these communities respect not only those who died in the wars, but importantly also those who returned home.  War veterans are called ‘Returned Servicemen and women’. Many historians see the First World War as very significant in New Zealand’s history – as the time when its identity as a nation was forged.  103 00 New Zealanders went overseas to fight in World War One. 18 500 died in the war and another 48 000 were wounded.

After the First World War the New Zealand Government helped to pay for war memorials to be erected and these often list the names of the servicemen and women who returned to New Zealand, as well as those who lost their lives. These memorials are often stone built archways, or sometimes more like the memorials we are used to at home. After the Second World War the Government again provided a subsidy for an appropriate memorial. This time towns often chose to erect a building, such as a Memorial Hall, or to designate a piece of ground for a park or playing field. In the Second World War 140 000 New Zealander went overseas to fight, including thousands who fought the Japanese in the Pacific. By July 1942 67% of New Zealand men between the ages of 18 and 45 were serving in the armed forces.

In the small museums in these little towns, alongside displays about the early settlers, there is almost invariably an exhibition with war memorabilia and about the effects of both wars on that community, with stories for example about how one local family lost 4 men in World War 1.

A few days before ANZAC Day I am in a little town called Methven and I stop and buy a poppy from a man who has a little table set up in the shopping arcade. I ask him some questions and he tells me that there is currently an exhibition in the Memorial Hall, so I pop over there to take a butchers and learn some more.

The hall has a couple of permanent exhibition boards about the contribution of New Zealand Servicemen and women to the First and Second World Wars and also one about the effects of the wars on the community of Methven itself.

War Exhibition Boards in Methven Hall

Methven lost 69 men in World War One. 64 families were affected, with one local family losing 3 of its menfolk.

There is also a temporary exhibition about local people who still live in Methven who returned from the Second World War. There is a current photo of each person, together with a photo or two of them during the war and some text with their own recollections from the war.  Tom was called up in 1941 at the age of 19 and served in Eygyt, Italy and Japan. He recalls seeing Hiroshima after the bomb had fallen and recalls, ‘It was just flattened; there was nothing left to see.’ As I am standing reading one of these an old man comes in and I recognise him immediately as the man I am just reading about – Tom Harrison. He has brought in another old photo of him and a couple of friends from his time in Italy.

Tom Harrison in 1941 at 19 Years Old

Tom’s War Recollections and Recent Photograph

Tom Harrison Today at 90 Years Old

On the day before ANZAC Day I am in the town of Hanmer Springs and decide to pay my respects and learn some more by going along to the dawn ceremony to see how the community marks the occasion. That night, while I am sleeping sounding in Josephine, when I am woken at midnight by the van shaking. Maybe someone is walking around the campsite in the dark and bumped into the van? But I don’t hear or see anyone.  I am a little spooked, but go back to sleep until my alarm wakes me at 5.30am and have to spend some time de-icing Josephine’s windscreen before driving the short distance into town. The ceremony will start the war memorial at 6.15am and then continue to the memorial hall.  As I park up and walk down the street towards the memorial there is a number of other people individually, or in small groups heading in the same direction. I overhear people talking about the earthquake last night. So that explains my midnight experience.

In front of the war memorial there is a small silver band waiting to play. They stamp their feet and blow on their fingers and adjust their head torches so that they shine on their music. They start by playing ‘Abide with me’  followed by, ‘I vow to thee my country’, then a couple of well-known Maori anthems, which I recognise, but I don’t know the titles.

Band

Crowd at the Ceremony

As they play the crowd gathers quietly. The community of Hanmer Springs has about 1000 residents and I guess about half of them are here. There are whole family groups, including small children. One woman wears a serviceman’s hat and medals; presumably from a family member.

In front of the war memorial there is a line of 4 empty chairs and around the memorial itself 4 soldiers in uniform stand totally still, with their heads bowed. They have guns over their shoulders and wear white gloves.  A parade of local service people in uniform march up, Dad’s Army-style. 3 very old men are with them and they take 3 of the 4 chairs in front of the memorial. These are the remaining local Second World Returned Servicemen. A local church minister takes the microphone and tells us that the 4^th veteran sadly died a few days ago. I can’t help but wonder how many will fill the chairs next year and it won’t be too long before there won’t be any chairs put out.

4 Chairs and Parade

The minister invites the 3 old men to come forward and lay a wreath. Then one man takes the microphone and in his very old man voice reads part of the Laurence Binyan poem ‘For the Fallen’ (which incidently was composed on the cliffs of North Cornwall):

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Then he pauses and repeats the last line, ‘We will remember them.’

Ode of Remembrance

Then various other official groups add their wreaths to the memorial, followed by members of the public who maybe just put down a single poppy. People walk up to the memorial and back in the slightly awkward way of recognising the solemnity of the ceremony. Several people wipe tears away, or just let them fall.

After the New Zealand National Anthem, we walk slowly up the main street to the flag staff outside the Memorial Hall. In the first light of the dawn the last post is played on a bugle as the flag is lowered to half mast and then we stand in 2 minutes’ silence. 

Last Post

Standing next to me there is a group of 3 small girls, about 8 years of age. One turns to the other 2 and says very solemnly, ‘The things we do can’t change the past; but the things we do will change the future.’