Article and picture courtesy of www.nzlive.com
The war that claimed the lives of 18,500 New Zealanders ended with the signing of the Armistice at the eleventh hour, 11 November 1918. Too worn out to celebrate, the troops quietly welcomed the news – finally they could think about coming home.
Mrs Bebe Lord, who was six years old in 1918, recalled the relief when the news reached New Zealand:
"Mum and I were at the shops and we heard the news and we saw the blacksmith rush out and climb up the fire bell that was in the main street then and he rang it endlessly... And then Mum came home and played God Save the King and I couldn’t understand it all because she was crying."
Ninety years later, the theme “Coming Home” has been used to link commemorative events nationwide – from traditional services to talks, exhibitions and full weekend festivals.
The theme was chosen to “emphasise the effect of war on all New Zealanders, and to stress that the war’s impact lasted long beyond November 1918,” says Neill Atkinson, Acting Chief Historian at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, which is coordinating the Coming Home project.
Government departments, the RSA, councils, museums and community organisations have incorporated the Coming Home theme into their commemorative events. A digital “hub” of information can be found on www.NZLive.com.
A new hunger for history
Interest in Armistice Day has picked up since the 90s. RSA Historian Dr Stephen Clarke notes a new fascination with World War One: “The Western Front, the mud and the trenches all capture the imagination – they seem so horrific and difficult to reconcile with life today.”
He observes a new hunger for history, “a need to search for our past and our sense of identity today."
“The interment of the Unknown Warrior and the dedication of the New Zealand War Memorial in London have reconfirmed Armistice Day’s national status.”
But there is no place for rose-tinted glasses. New Zealand servicemen came home, not to a peaceful utopia, but to a country battle-weary from four years of anxiety, loss, the day-to-day hardships of wartime sacrifice – and the deadly flu pandemic.
In the Shadow of War, an oral history compiled by Nicholas Boyack and Jane Tolerton, describes the story of the World War One veteran in New Zealand as “one of betrayal.”
History relates the disbanding of the Repatriation Department in 1922, the disastrous land settlement scheme that saw hundreds of men walk off their barren farms, and disability, disease and shellshock dismissed as “malingering."
As Stan Stanfield of the Wellington Infantry Battalion put it, “To be a returned soldier…was to be something that was no good for any bloody thing”.
Ninety years on, those servicemen now have the limelight they deserve as their experience of coming home is explored across the nation.
Nationwide commemorations
One town with reason to remember is Cambridge. It is the sister city of Le Quesnoy in France, which New Zealand troops liberated a week before the Armistice. Each year, Cambridge commemorates with "Armistice in Cambridge" – a three-day event featuring military vehicle parades, air displays, re-enactments of famous battles, and a victory dance.
Dunedin too is going all out with a massed march, a wreath-laying ceremony and two minutes’ silence at the eleventh hour.
Exhibitions will be held at key museums and national repositories. Auckland War Memorial Museum will present In Memory, a special exhibition by filmmaker Peter Kirby. The three-screen film installation tells the story of World War One through the eyes of three New Zealanders serving their country from bases in France and Egypt.
Coming Home will also has a virtual presence, thanks to the National Digital Forum and powered by Digital New Zealand. Images, audio and video content and other memorabilia from the war and its aftermath – sourced from far and wide – will be available online as part of the Coming Home project.
The cornerstone of 90th anniversary commemorations is the National War Memorial programme of events, including concerts, a silent film After the War, a quilt display and a wreath-laying ceremony – to which a flyover by First World War aircraft will add a touch of drama.
Coming Home events run from October 2008 to March 2009.
Find events happening near you to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the End of World War One. Coming Home Events on NZLive.com
