28th Māori Battalion Battle memorial flag to fly high on Waitangi Day

Tā Robert Gillies Kamupene B, 28 (Māori) Battalion stands with Aake Ake Kia Kaha, The 28 (Māori) Battalion Battle Honours Memorial Flag at St Faiths, Ohinemutu. Photo: Harawira Craig Pearless / Supplied

For the first time in 76 years, the 28th Māori Battalion Battle Honours memorial flag will be fully displayed and recognised in Rotorua for Waitangi Day.

It will be presented at Muruika, Ohinemutu, on February 6 by Tā Robert Gillies, the last remaining member of the 28th Māori Battalion who served in B Company during World War II from 1942-1945.

Last year Gillies was knighted for a second time after turning it down twice and finally accepting it on behalf of the soldiers he fought alongside.

The Battalion’s 42 Campaign and Battle Honours will acknowledge the sovereign, which recognises their presence, since the campaign and battle honours have never been displayed.

Gillies says recognition of the campaign is 70 years too late.

“We were volunteers, not conscripts, and we fought for six long years. The whole battalion agrees.”

More than 3600 young Māori were part of the 28th Māori Battalion. More than 600 of them were killed during the war.

For years, Gillies has called for the Crown to apologise for the treatment of Māori soldiers after their return.

Despite the huge sacrifices the soldiers made, when they returned to New Zealand very little was changed in terms of policy and equality for Māori.

Soldiers who fought in the battalion weren’t allowed to enter RSAs, hotels and other public places, and were told to leave.

More than 600 soldiers who fought in the battalion never received their medals either.

Presentation of B Company Maori Battalion medals at Te Papaiouru Marae Rotorua. (l-r) Aaron Morrison, Kelvin Davis, and Sir Willie Apiata VC . Photo / NZME

Gillies has been fighting another battle of his own, trying to get recognition for the battalion by representing it at events across Aotearoa.

Lawyer David Stone is also working to help retrieve the medals of those soldiers who never received them.

In December, a ceremony was held in Ohinemutu where the whānau of 89 soldiers were finally awarded their medals at Te Papaiōuru Marae in Rotorua.

Gillies wants the New Zealand Defence Force Māori Battalion flag and the 28th Māori Battalion Battle Honours Memorial to stand next to each other as pou maumahara (memorial carving), to highlight the sacrifices tangata whenua made during World War II.

Gillies will also present the flag at Waitangi on February 18, where a kawe mate (mourning ceremony) will take place before returning to the Taonga Tūpāpaku to Waitangi on Anzac Day.