The plaque bearing (inset) Rongoihaere Rikihana's name at the World War I Memorial Gates in Tauranga. Photos / John Borren / Supplied
The plaque bearing (inset) Rongoihaere Rikihana's name at the World War I Memorial Gates in Tauranga. Photos / John Borren / Supplied
Bay of Plenty Times Year In Review takes a look back at 2018 and republishes some of the top stories of the year. In this one, originally published on November 11, reporter Scott Yeoman talks to the family of a soldier who almost made it home from the war.
The young private arrived at Tauranga's town wharf at 2 o'clock in the morning, on board the Ngatiawa. He had been wounded and gassed on the Western Front. As the sun rose on that Wednesday morning, the ailing soldier could make out his home across the harbour – Matapihi, where hisparents were waiting for him. When he enlisted 20 months before, he was 5ft 8 inches tall and weighed about 68kg. He had a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair. Now he was gravely ill. After several spells in hospital in Europe, he had been sent back to Aotearoa, only to spend more months holed up in the Cambridge Sanatorium. Then he left. He wanted to go home, and now, he was so close. As he crossed the harbour to Matapihi on a launch that day – such a short distance, so far away from the horrors of war – he collapsed and died. It was November 13, 1918. Two days after the Armistice was signed.
Whare Dickson swells with pride when he walks past the entrance to Wharepai Domain in Tauranga.
"I see my grand-uncle up there," the 62-year-old Matapihi man says.
R. Rikihana is one of 90 names etched on white marble plaques at the World War I Memorial Gates on Cameron Rd.
A single red poppy has been stuck to the top right-hand corner of the plaque bearing Rongoihaere Rikihana's name.
On the other side of the centre gate on another plaque, a second poppy – this one faded but still clinging on – sits under the heading "1917 France".
That's when and where Rikihana first entered the field of war.
Unlike many of his compatriots, however, his tragic story didn't end in France or on the frontline.
It ended on Tauranga Harbour, within sight of home.
Whare Dickson, 62, sharing the tragic war story of his great-uncle Rikihana (inset, left). Photo / John Borren
Rikihana's road to World War I began on his 23rd birthday.
That's the day he enlisted at the Tauranga recruiting office – March 6, 1917.
Although, there is some doubt as to whether that recorded birth date and age is correct. Some family members believe he changed it so he would be old enough to serve.
Whare Dickson was told by an uncle that Rikihana might have been 18 or 19 when he signed up.
"I think he was excited about seeing the world," Dickson says. "Not that excited when he got there, apparently."
Dickson says his report was based on Rikihana's military files and stories passed down by family.
His uncle told him that Rikihana was in signals and ran messages on foot in and between the trenches and also on a motorcycle, from the field to the command post.
"He said they did hear stories of his feats through the trenches. Apparently, he was an excellent runner, a good sprinter and he would do things you'd call stupid – just sprint out and get the messages back to the commanding officers, and then run the orders back again."
But Rikihana's active service was to be cut short by something that would eventually kill tens of millions of people worldwide.
The plaque bearing Rongoihaere Rikihana's name at the World War I Memorial Gates in Tauranga. Photo / John Borren
He had arrived on the Western Front in France in the second half of 1917 and made it through to the New Year.
By January 11, however, Rikihana had developed a troublesome cough.
He was admitted to a field ambulance with bronchitis and on the same day was dispatched to a hospital.
During that winter of 1917, several hundred soldiers at Étaples were struck with influenza-like symptoms and 156 deaths were recorded by the medics there, according to a centenary article in the Guardian earlier this year.
One prominent scientific theory, the Guardian explained, has it that the influenza pandemic of 1918 – commonly referred to as the Spanish flu – began in the vast British military camp at Étaples.
There were several hospitals where soldiers who had been gassed were evacuated for treatment, their lungs compromised.
At the time, the epidemic was being labelled "purulent bronchitis".
Rikihana was one of those gassed on the Western Front, and the diagnosis of "bronchitis" was recorded more than once in his military files.
Hingatu was the aunty for which Dickson researched and wrote his great-uncle's story.
She died four years ago at the age of 96, but not before she read it.
Dickson says she was "very overwhelmed".
Tauranga Harbour, with Matapihi Peninsula visible on the left. Photo / Tauranga Heritage Collection
Meanwhile, he continues to share and honour Rikihana's story and makes an effort to point out his name on the World War I Memorial Gates at the entrance to Wharepai Domain.
"I'm proud every time I go past those gates," Dickson says.
"Having a grand-uncle go through all that; having his name up there.
"It's there because the people of Tauranga remember him, as long as those gates are standing."
On the right-hand side of the gates is a flag pole and a large camellia tree, some of its pinky-red flowers lying on the grass surrounded by daisies.
In front of the tree and pole, on a slab of white marble surrounded by red bricks, is a four-line inscription.
"Sons of this place, let this of you be said, That you who live are worthy of your dead. These died that you who live may keep Home, honour, freedom, till you fall asleep."
On Armistice Day, the New Zealand flag will fly above those words as The Last Post and then the Reveille sound out across the Domain.
The plaque bearing Rongoihaere Rikihana's name at the World War I Memorial Gates in Tauranga. Photo / John Borren
