Jim Eagles: We will remember them

COMMENT

The number of New Zealanders who have actually fought in a war may be declining fast but interest in the country's wartime history is definitely not.

Attendance at Anzac Day continues to increase, and more New Zealanders are also going overseas to see where their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought and sometimes died.

There doesn't seem to be huge interest in the Boer War although that was the first time New Zealand troops went to fight overseas.

But places like Gallipoli, where the Anzac tradition was forged, the World War I battlefields in France, and World War II battlefields in mainland Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy are popular travel destinations in their own right.

The annual Anzac commemoration at Gallipoli draws growing numbers of young Kiwis and Aussies eager to experience for themselves a land that looms so large in their countries' history.

This year, for instance, Adventure World alone is running three different tours for New Zealanders to Anzac Cove, Chunuk Bair and Lone Pine Cemetery.

The warnings that terrorists might see the commemorations as a target have deterred some this year but obviously not all.

Similarly, the children and grandchildren of World War II veterans are being drawn to places like Crete, El Alamein and Monte Cassino of which they have heard so much.

It can be an immensely worthwhile experience.

I went with my parents to the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Crete and found it deeply moving.

Partly, that was because of the extraordinary gratitude the Greeks - and especially the Cretans - still feel for those who fought alongside them even after all these years.

Perhaps the most graphic demonstration of that came on Crete when our bus was flagged down for an unscheduled stop by the people of the village of Rethymno.

When we got off the bus young women in national costume crowned each veteran with an olive wreath - they even offered me one - and then the whole village lined up to applaud them along a 100m victory walk.

A similar sentiment survives even in the rather more robust atmosphere of Athens.

The most unexpected tribute came amid the pushing and shoving on the electric rail system when, to our astonishment, a local man stood up and offered my father his seat. "Thank you," said my father, whose health was not good. "No," said the man, pointing to the Battle of Crete badge, "we thank you."

But it was also moving for the opportunity it provided to hear my father - who, like most of his generation, never talked about the war - discuss what happened in the places we were visiting.

At the picturesque village of Galatas I discovered my father had been involved in a famous bayonet charge which swept aside a much larger force of Germans.

At Sfakia we heard about the desperate evacuation exercise which saved thousands of troops to fight another day. At the war graves I heard about friends who were buried there.

Perhaps the most poignant was at Souda Bay where his mate Snow Nicholson is among the 439 young New Zealanders commemorated. "Snow was shot while we were pulling back and he told us to leave him lying there," my father recalled. "All he asked was that we put his fiancee's photo in his hands so he could die looking at her. So we left him there curled up with the photo just in front of his face."

I came away feeling I had a much better understanding of both my father and the significance of New Zealand's involvement in the war.

Of course it is getting a bit late now to do that sort of trip with a veteran but it can be very rewarding to visit places like Crete where New Zealanders are still thought of with great fondness.

Souda Bay, where the allied troops landed, is completely changed from the makeshift wartime port where the New Zealanders landed.

But in Galatas the main street where the bayonet charge occurred is still pretty much unchanged with even a few bullet holes still to be seen amid the posters for Coke and Kodak.

The route the retreating allied troops took over the mountains is as magnificently rugged as ever.

On the other side of the island the fishing village of Sfakia, where the lucky ones were evacuated to the safety of Egypt, is largely unchanged.

Read about the battles before you go and you'll find history coming to life everywhere.

It can be equally rewarding to find the spot where a father, uncle or grandfather is buried.

For anyone wanting to do that, the website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has a remarkably full index of war graves.

For instance, I decided to look up Alex Chaplin, my father's best friend, who enlisted alongside him and fought alongside him until he died at Tobruk, and after whom I was named.

Within seconds there it was: Chaplin, Richard Alexander. Service number 2992.

The record shows that he died on December 6, 1941, aged 25, and is buried in plot 7.N.11 at the Tobruk War Cemetery.

There is even a plan of the cemetery which shows exactly where he lies.

For as long as I can remember we have had a family ritual each Anzac Day of leaving a couple of poppies on Alex Chaplin's plaque on Memorial Drive in Devonport.

Now I think it would be nice to see his actual grave some day and leave a poppy there.

For many years that would have been rather difficult but since the rapprochement between Libya and the West it has become much more feasible.

Indeed, just last week a press release arrived from Adventure World headed, "Libya is open for business".

It was promoting a Dragoman Tour from Tunis to Cairo which visits Tripoli and Tobruk along the way.

Lots of other companies are doing the same.

United Travel also has a tour going to Libya, starting and ending in the Tunisian city of Djerba, which includes a visit to the war cemeteries in Tobruk.

Flight Centre advises that Emirates flies to Tobruk from Dubai with return fares from Auckland starting at $2399 (plus airport charges).

The place where so many young New Zealanders risked their lives is no longer so very far away.