Wairarapa war dead remembered

SALUTE: Dainley Rodda(left) Lieutenant colonel(ret.) Royal New Zealand Signals Corp and Malaya veteran, John Frost, ex Signals, and George Butcher, former New Zealand Army engineer and K Force veteran

Scores of young students bowed their heads alongside thinning ranks of returned Masterton servicemen and women yesterday to remember Wairarapa heroes who have fallen in battle since World War I broke out a century ago.

Close to 80 Chanel College students stood before the Queen Elizabeth Park cenotaph and observed the traditional two minutes of silence at 11am alongside about 50 returned servicemen and women and a small crowd to commemorate the signing at that time of day on November 11, 1918, of the armistice between World War I Allies and Germany to mark the cessation of hostilities.

Among participants at the Masterton service was former New Zealand Army engineer and K Force veteran George Butcher, whose father John Butcher served at Gallipoli with the British Army, and ex Women's Royal New Zealand Naval Service sailor, Pene Jackson.

Ms Jackson was born at 11am on November 11 in 1953, she said, and was "the only person I know who gets two minutes' silence on their birthday" while also having a family tradition of military service.

"I have an uncle buried in one of the 10 marked graves at Chunuk Bair, my grandfather fought in the First World War and my dad (Bert Irvine) fought at Guadalcanal. I'm proud to have served and proud to have carried on the family tradition, even if the others were all army."

Masterton Mayor Lyn Patterson, Masterton RSA vice-president Malcolm Harris and Ms Jackson laid wreaths at the Cenotaph - emblazoned with the names of Wairarapa service members who died, and topped by a bronze statue of "The Last Anzac"- while Reverend Merv Jones led the introduction and blessing at the service.

Rev Jones later blessed a heart rimu cross fashioned by builder and returned serviceman Bill Hallett for the Wairarapa Services & Citizens Club. The cross features the legend "Lest We Forget" and a poppy, made by The Sign Factory, that illuminates with rear LED lighting. Rheegin Anderson McKenzie, platoon sergeant of the Makoura College Services Academy, gave a speech at the Remembrance Day service centred on Masterton corporal and seriously wounded Gallipoli survivor Wi Paraone, who died of influenza at home in 1918, in tribute to the more than 450 Wairarapa soldiers and service members who died in the Great War.

"Mr Paraone had served two years and 56 days and was after his death awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, and this sums up the lot of a young man who never had the chance to live life to the fullest, sacrificing all to make our world a better place. To all our fallen soldiers, your duty is done. Now to honour you, is ours."

Mr Harris also read The Ode in English, while returned serviceman Trevor Thompson rendered the passage in te reo Maori. The Last Post and Reveille was played by a Masterton District Brass Band trumpeter, who also played the National Anthem alongside other band members.

The service was played out at memorials throughout New Zealand yesterday to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I and to commemorate "the sacrifice of those who died serving New Zealand in this and all wars and armed conflict", according to the New Zealand Defence Forces website.

The Great War of 1914 to 1918 - one of the most devastating events in history - was a war to which New Zealand, with a population of 1.1 million in 1914, sent 100,000 men and women.

About 16,700 of those sent from New Zealand died and more than 40,000 were wounded - a higher per capita casualty rate than any other country involved.

Mr Harris said it was heartening to see so many young faces at the Remembrance Day service including speechmaker Rheegin Anderson McKenzie, who also impressed Chanel College teacher Edward Walthew with her words in memory of the fallen from Wairarapa. Mr Walthew said he had accompanied about 73 students from the Masterton school to the service, which had been opportune as the students had been studying the involvement of New Zealand in the conflict.

"Armistice Day commemorations came up fortuitously for our students and gave them all a good opportunity to come along and observe what they had already been studying this year," Mr Walthew said.

"That's 70 kids who were new to all this. I was asked by one whether these were all the heroes who fought, and that to me seemed to represent the reason for the commemoration."