Northland men pay respects at Monte Cassino in Italy

Performing a haka for Prince Harry was a further honour for the young men who travelled from Northland to Monte Cassino. Photo/Supplied

For the second time in 70 years, young Maori men from Northland's A Company have helped hold the line at Monte Cassino in Italy.

The lads are from the Leadership Academy of A Company and the line is the line-up of guests, Defence personnel, Italian dignitaries and Prince Harry attending the anniversary of the deadly Battle of Cassino.

Fourteen of the Whangarei-based academy's students and eight adults are in Italy for the 70th anniversary commemoration.

In the official New Zealand contingent are 39 World War II veterans and Lieutenant-General Governor-General Sir Jerry Mataparae.

Since the Leadership Academy opened four years ago, the students have studied the history of the 28th (Maori) Battalion and the Italian campaign, as well as heard the stories of their tupuna - "so it is not new to them", chief executive Raewyn Tipene said. Their journey to Monte Cassino is personal and educational, she said.

But although not in the official party, the students were invited to march behind the veterans and invited to stand with the VIPs at the Commonwealth ceremony, Ms Tipene said.

"The Italians came and said 'we want those boys in here'."

It was a further honour when the group was asked to perform a haka for Prince Harry.

"They could very easily have been lost in the pomp and ceremony but they've been right there and included in everything," Ms Tipene said. "We're very proud of them."

Attending the Commonwealth Ceremony and visiting key locations had moved the young men from Northland, but the commemoration at the Cassino Railway Station where the original A Company had fought, and hearing Kiwi veterans recall their experiences there, had the biggest impact on them, Ms Tipene said.

Most have family links to soldiers who fought, many of whom died, in the campaign in 1944 when Allied forces tried to budge German forces from the strategically important rocky outcrop, home to a 1400-year-old Benedictine monastery.

The Battalion suffered the highest losses of any Allied force at Monte Cassino, with 120 casualties out of the 200 Maori soldiers, 58 of them buried there in the war cemetery among more than 400 New Zealanders.

The boys walked past and acknowledged every New Zealander buried in that cemetery, and laid poppies on the graves of the brother of surviving A Company soldier Sol Te Whata, of Moerewa, and the Unknown New Zealand soldier.