Which will make a remembrance service set to take place on Thursday, December 19, even more special in terms of remembering those lost to war, and in an incident which remains the greatest single tragedy New Zealand naval forces have experienced.
For it will be in Taradale, where Basil and Roy Atkinson spent their early years.
The service, to be conducted by Hawke's Bay Veterans padre Reverend Bill Chapman, will take place at 11am at the Taradale Memorial Clock Tower and will be attended by Returned Services Association representatives, the Navy Cadet Unit and president of the Royal New Zealand Navy Association Mike King.
Reverend Chapman met up with Walton, who passed away in 2005, back in the mid-80s when he travelled out from his English home for a tour of New Zealand which had been organised by the Ex-Royal Navalmens' Association.
"He came to Napier as part of that tour and I spoke to him — and it was obvious he did not really want to talk too much about it," Reverend Chapman said.
He said he was "aghast" that what happened on that fateful day was not widely known.
"We lost 150 men at that one moment."
So as they did for the inaugural HMS Neptune memorial service last year, he and King got together again to put a service together this year.
"And we will continue on to make it an annual event," King said.
"It needs to be done — to be remembered."
The story of HMS Neptune is a harrowing one.
Back in early 1941, as World War II raged and spread across Europe and beyond, the New Zealand government responded to the Admiralty's request for more sailors to man the increasing number of ships going into war service.
It had been intended to form a New Zealand crew for an additional cruiser, HMS Neptune, which was to have headed for New Zealand in May that year, but instead was attached to the 7th Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean due to the heavy loss of cruisers during the Crete campaign.
So HMS Neptune joined the Malta-based Force K under Admiral Cunningham, and the Kiwis joined it there.
Of the 150 who stepped aboard for duty 80 had served in the Naval Reserve before the outbreak of war.
Every available Force K ship was deployed to ensure that the oiler and crucial supply vessel HMS Breconshire would arrive safely in Malta.
There were threats from the air and from two Italian battleships, whose presence indicated the Italians intentions to sail a convoy to Tripoli — and that had to be intercepted.
In a heavy sea, and at around 1am, the Force K ships were about 20 nautical miles from Tripoli when HMS Neptune triggered a mine.
A second cruiser behind Neptune also struck and set off a mine, and when Neptune went full astern it triggered two more mines — K Force was in a deep-water minefield which wrecked Neptune's propellers and steering.
Over the following three hours there were several attempts to assist HMS Neptune but at 4am it struck yet another mine and went down in just a few minutes.
While 16 of the crew survived the ordeal and managed to clamber aboard a raft, over the following five days they died one by one — with Walton the only survivor to be picked up by the Italian forces on Christmas Eve, and he became a prisoner of war.
King said another "guest" at Thursday's service will be a remarkable model of HMS Neptune which was donated by a Wairarapa association and which is set to become housed at the Ex-Royal Navalmens' Association in Napier.
