New Zealand soldiers in action on the Western Front, where Northland soldier Harry Lamb, who features in the WW100 campaign, lost an arm. Image courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library
New Zealand soldiers in action on the Western Front, where Northland soldier Harry Lamb, who features in the WW100 campaign, lost an arm. Image courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library
The stories of three New Zealanders - including a Northland man - who made it home from the World War I are the focus of WW100's latest campaign Finding Our Way Back.
Northland soldier Harry Lamb, who was seriously injured on the Western Front, is one of the three posterchildren of the campaign.
Lamb returned with a prosthetic arm and his grandson Nigel Herring remembers that people called him "Harry Hook" or "Harry Hookum" behind his back.
Eight days after his brother died in battle on the front, Lamb himself marched towards the enemy. He didn't get far before he was struck down by artillery fire.
With his elbow shattered, he hauled himself three miles in knee-deep mud to a Field Ambulance Station.
Lamb's arm was amputated and he was sent home to New Zealand with the artificial limb that gave him his nickname.
Northland farmer and WW1 veteran Harry Lamb is one the three featured in WW100s' campaign.
As part of his rehabilitation, he was given 72 days' training in shorthand, bookkeeping and typing - but office work wasn't for Harry. Attracted by the high price being paid for kauri gum gleaned from the Far North's swamps, he devised a way to dig with his good arm and his artificial limb.
"Harry is a great example of the Kiwi can-do attitude," Herring said. "He started with next to nothing. Everything he achieved was done by hard work and sheer bloody-mindedness.
''How many other one-armed gum diggers were out there?"
It is also ironic Lamb ended up working in mud, having faced his terrible ordeal dragging himself through the deep mire of the battle field.
Later, granted land at Pukenui under the Discharged Soldiers' Settler Scheme, he became a successful farmer despite the difficulty of clearing and ploughing land and milking cows with a prosthetic limb.
Today, Lamb Rd in Pukenui bears his name.
"As the centenary of the First World War draws to a close, we remember all those service personnel whose lives were changed forever," said Matthew Tonks, senior digital advisor with the WW100 First World War Centenary Programme.
WW100 is designed to reflect New Zealand's experience on the battlefields of Turkey, Europe and Middle East, and on the home front.
The grave of the NZ Soldier from the Western Front in Picardy, France.
Just under 10 per cent of New Zealand's population served in World War I. For those who survived, their journeys back took many different routes.
The trauma they experienced affected both them and their families in untold ways. To support the returning soldiers and nurses, the government set up a programme of training, loans, land settlements, pensions and rehabilitation schemes.
The other featured veterans in WW100's campaign include nurse Edith McLeod, who survived the sinking of the SS Marquette, which was torpedoed by a German U-Boat in the Adriatic Sea in 1915. In total, 167 lives were lost.
After being treated for her injuries, Edith was redeployed to Europe to the brutal battles taking place on the Western Front.
She served right through until 1919 and is believed to be the only woman to take up land under the Discharged Soldiers' Settler Scheme.
The other, David Falconer, survived a gunshot wound to the head on the Western Front, but was deeply traumatised by his war experience.
Only weeks earlier, his younger brother John had died in the same battle. Falconer's injuries left him with facial paralysis and his medical records show he struggled with insomnia and significant weight loss.
He returned home to New Zealand in 1917, a shadow of the burly young farmer he once was.
The next year, both he and a younger brother, Edwin, were taken ill by the nationwide influenza pandemic. Falconer recovered but his brother did not survive.
His war experience left him deeply traumatised and he struggled to readjust to home life. He took his own life in 1919, just two years after being discharged from service. The coroner ruled his death as "self-inflicted, while mentally depressed".*
It was only in 2014 that Falconer's name was added to the official New Zealand World War I roll of honour.
These people and their stories are an important part of our history, and shaped who we are, Tonks said.
For more information on the impact of World War I on New Zealand, see ww100.govt.nz/findingourwayback
* Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP) Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) Healthline – 0800 611 116 Samaritans – 0800 726 666
