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KEY POINTS:
Dear Mother, just a few lines in haste to tell you how I am pegging along," the letter home starts. "I can understand at home you will be pretty busy on the farm & all the young stock to look after for a few months."
The tone is
carefree, yet the date is November 2, 1918 and the killing fields of Western Europe have another nine days' butchery before work is done.
The author is Stephen McDonnell, a New Zealand trooper who, belying the gentle tone of his letter, had fought through northern France, fighting in the mud and losing comrades on the way as the Germans retreated.
The exploits of McDonnell and others of the New Zealand Division are being honoured tomorrow on the Western Front, where 12,483 men were killed between 1916 and 1918. They amount to one in eight of the 100,444 New Zealanders sent overseas in World War I in a population of just one million.
The Anzac Day commemorations hold a special resonance, coming on the 90th anniversary of the conflict's final year.
Commemorations will take place at Longueval, at the memorial for the 1200 New Zealanders killed in the Somme, and at nearby Caterpillar Valley cemetery. Remembrance will be especially strong in the northern French town of Le Quesnoy, whose liberation on November 4, 1918 ranks as one of the most remarkable feats of arms by New Zealand.
The town of 5000 people has a mediaeval fortress strengthened in the 17th century by the great French military architect, Vauban.
His defences were a garrison protected by double ramparts 3.5km long, arranged in star shape. The ramparts, about 10 metres high in places, were separated by a moat that could be instantly flooded from a lake.
By November 4, 1918, the New Zealanders chose to outflank this redoubtable strongpoint as they helped push the Kaiser's forces into retreat.
The fortress could be taken by pounding it into submission, but at a bloody cost in civilian lives. The Kiwis' solution combined stealth and mediaeval siege technology.
The troops used 8-metre ladders, put together by the division's sappers, to scale the outer walls at dawn - but the higher inner walls presented a huge problem. Eventually, the assailants found a ledge on which a ladder could be perched. Led by the 4th Battalion's intelligence officer, Lieutenant Leslie Averill, the riflemen climbed to the top, exchanged shots with the fleeing Germans and entered the town.
The liberated population erupted in joy. Ninety New Zealanders and five civilians were killed in the operation. German casualties are unknown.
The main streets of Le Quesnoy have been christened with New Zealand names alongside their French ones - the Rue Marechal Joffre has been dual-named Rue Helene Clark.
A large bas-relief memorial, emblazoned with From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth, marks the spot where the inner wall was scaled.
In the town hall, pride of place goes to a 4m model of a Maori warrior.
As part of Sunday's commemoration, Le Quesnoy is staging two exhibitions of memorabilia, including letters from Stephen McDonnell, and artefacts dug up from the trenches.
The guests of honour include Wing Commander Russell Kennedy, a RNZAF officer who is flying from Afghanistan.
He will be with his son, Sergeant Mike Kennedy of 5 Squadron RNZAF, arriving from Scotland.
Wing Commander Kennedy's grandfather, John Davis, won the Military Medal in 1918 and took part in Le Quesnoy's liberation in a support role.
