Poignant Pilgrimage to Passchendaele

Thousands who followed the All Blacks to Europe also made a poignant pilgrimage to Belgium to commemorate New Zealand’s worst military disaster and to remember lost rugby legends.

Some 2,800 New Zealanders were either killed, wounded or listed as missing on 12 October 1917, during the battle for Passchendaele, a small, but strategically important village in Flanders.

Among those who died during the offensive, officially known as the Third Ypres, was Sergeant David Gallaher, captain of the first All Blacks team, known as the Originals. He was one of 10 All Blacks killed on the Western Front and one of 13 who died in the war.

The RNZRSA produced a Passchendaele Poppy Pack to ensure that the tragedy, and its legacy, is never forgotten. Including poppies in the packs meant those travelling to France and Belgium could pay their respects to relatives, or even fellow townsfolk, using the globally recognised symbol of remembrance.

Immediate past president John Campbell and RSA and All Black legends, Fred Allen and Bob Scott represented the RNZRSA at the Ypres commemorations in Belgium on 11–12 October. They travelled to Europe with the assistance of Poppy Partner Young and Lee Tours.

John Campbell, Fred Allen and Bob Scott after laying the RNZRSA wreath at the Menin Gate Ceremony.

While Gallipoli is the campaign most commonly associated with the ANZACs, the Western Front was the costliest campaign ever for NZ forces. Between April 1916 and November 1918, more of our men died in France and Flanders than during the whole of World War II.

It is also important to place our contribution to the Allied cause in World War I into context.

The loss of nearly 17,000 of the NZEF overseas means that about 15 in every 1000 New Zealanders became victims – in Britain the comparable figure was 16, in Australia 12 and Canada eight.

“More than 100,000 of our soldiers served overseas and yet this was at a time when New Zealand’s population was just over one million,” John Campbell said.

“There would hardly have been a family or town in New Zealand who would not have been touched by the war and Passchendaele in particular.”

Many of the fallen have no known grave. Tens of thousands are remembered at memorials such as the Menin Gate in Ypres. The RNZRSA representatives laid wreaths here for their fallen countrymen and fallen All Blacks.

Nearby Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth cemetery of either world war. Almost 12,000 soldiers lay there, a staggering 70 per cent, including 322 New Zealanders, with headstones bearing the words “Known Unto God”.

The Cross of Sacrifice at Tyne Cot Cemetery

The memorial to the missing at the rear of the cemetery is one of four built by NZ on the Western Front in the 1920s. It contains the names of 1179 New Zealanders killed at Passchendaele, who have no known grave. Included are at least five sets of two brothers (Carmody, High, Leslie, McIlroy and O’Gorman) and one of three brothers – the Newloves from Takaka – evidence of the devastating impact the war had on NZ, not to mention the thousands who returned home physically maimed or with psychological scars that remained with them for the rest of their lives.

	Two young Kiwis prepare to pay their respects at Menin Gate.

John Campbell said the workdone by NZDefence Force representatives from London and Wellington in organising the ceremonies at the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot was outstanding – “there were more than 2,000 at the Menin Gate and the haka performed by the Young and Lee haka party at both ceremonies was spine chilling”.

“We would like to see Passchendaele become a place of pilgrimage for all New Zealanders, similar to the way Australia has claimed Gallipoli. The work done for the 90th Commemoration has been a big start but really has only scratched the surface of getting younger New Zealanders to understand what our tiny nation has sacrificed for freedom and democracy across the world.”

Images courtesy of Peter Bush