Flanders poppies mark soldier's return home

By HELEN TUNNAH


Bright red Soldiers' poppies are just beginning to bloom in Anne and Colin Hall's cottage garden.

They've staged a timely coming-out for the return of the nation's Unknown Warrior from the battlefields of France.

The identity of that soldier will never be known, but for Mrs Hall, who lost three relatives in World War I, the interment of one warrior's remains tomorrow will help serve as a reminder of the horrors of war.

"You don't forget, and you don't do it again. It's a public monument to what went on."

Her great-uncle's remains lie somewhere in France. Her two uncles, Dunedin brothers, are buried in separate cemeteries there.

Mrs Hall, of Lower Hutt, and her husband, retired Squadron Leader Colin Hall, will be at the interment service at the new Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Wellington. They believe the ceremony will mark a significant step in New Zealand developing its own identity.

"We've grown up as a nation," Mrs Hall says. "We're old enough to have our own monument. Michael King's history book [Penguin History of New Zealand] is pouring out of the shops, and it is part of our history."

Her maternal grandmother's brother, Sergeant Robert Kiely, is an "unknown" soldier. Born on the West Coast and raised in Wellington, he is remembered on the Grevillers (New Zealand) Memorial in northern France. He was one of 455 New Zealanders killed between March and August 1918; only nine have graves.

Sergeant Kiely, 29, was said to have had a beautiful baritone voice and is believed to have been shot by a German sniper as he returned from a choir practice.

No one knows where his body is.

Michael and John Tarleton were the sons of Irish immigrants living in Dunedin. Mrs Hall's father, the youngest of eight children, was still at school when his brothers sailed for Europe.

Michael died soon after arriving in France in 1917. A letter to his mother, Maria, baldly states his war record, when he left New Zealand and arrived in England. It says when he stepped foot on France, and then records the day he was wounded, and the day he died of gunshot wounds.

It says: "G.S.W., chest penetrating. Died of wounds".

His younger brother, John, was killed in action nine months later, aged 26.

John's first grave was marked by a simple cross, bearing the names of two New Zealand dead. He now has his own headstone and own grave.

Maria Tarleton was determined to see her sons' graves and did so, but the proud daughter of Ireland remained bitter they had died in a war for England.

Mr Hall, who was in the Royal Air Force before flying for the Royal NZ Air Force, migrated from England, but is passionate about the importance of New Zealanders having their own Unknown Warrior, instead of having to visit the unknown British soldier at Westminster Abbey.

"I don't think people realise just how important this Unknown Warrior is; it's what makes us," he says.

"It's hugely important that he, as a representative, be brought home. [France] isn't his country. This is his country."