Ceremony honours family who sacrificed three sons

Buck Tumataroa sheds tears in the Hiruhirama Cemetery in Mohaka.

Not long after World War II broke out in 1939, Buck Tumataroa farewelled four of his brothers who had joined 28 (Maori) Battalion to go to war.

Only one of the four returned home.

This month, more than 50 years after they died, Buck Tumataroa remembered his brothers at the emotional unveiling of three plaques at a cemetery in Hawkes Bay.

John and Ben Tumataroa died within a month of each other in April and May 1943, and are buried in the Enfidaville War Cemetery in Tunisia.

Ken Tumataroa died in May, 1941, but his body was never found and he is remembered at the Athens Memorial Cemetery in Greece.

Chick (Okeroa) Tumataroa, the fourth brother to leave for war, went home reluctantly under Army orders by authorities conscious of the huge loss the family had suffered.

A fifth brother, Phil Tumataroa, was in an Army camp training but he, too, was ordered out of the Army.

The sixth brother, Buck (christened Robert), was a teenager and too young to go to war.

Last weekend Buck Tumataroa, the only one of the six brothers still alive, spoke through tears when he remembered his brothers who had died in uniform.

For family friend Ted Waaka, who went to primary school with two of the brothers, the event was hugely emotional.

"Buck wanted something he could touch for his brothers."

Mr Waaka said Veterans Affairs New Zealand and the Department of Maori Affairs had produced three plaques to remember the three brothers.

They were mounted on stone and unveiled at the Hiruharama Cemetery by the Ngati Pahauwera tribe's Waipapa A Iwi marae in Mohaka, north of Napier.

"It was a special moment, a lot of tears," Mr Waaka said.

The ceremony gave Buck Tumataroa closure after more than 50 years, said another family friend, John Sturgess, who helped to organise the event.

"The loss of three brothers from one family must have been extremely distressing for the parents.

"Buck was very moved by it all.

"With a Maori family when they have a funeral the tangi is very important.

"When they got killed overseas there was no opportunity to express their grief or go through the tangi procedure."

Mr Sturgess said that was traumatic.

"This was what in Maori they call kawemate, where they bring the spirits of those who have died outside of their home ground home to rest."

He said Buck Tumataroa had lived with the grief for more than 50 years.

"He is a pretty tough old bugger, but it has stayed with him all his life."

Mr Sturgess said the drive to go to war still motivated Buck Tumataroa even after his three brothers had been killed.

He tried to join the Army under a different name.

"He had the mandatory dickey age and identity but they knew who he was."

Mr Sturgess said the plaque and the stones were similar to the memorials and headstones at overseas war cemeteries.