War historian leads pilgrimage

A Massey University historian is leading a group of Kiwis on a trip to Belgium in memory of a World War I battle even bloodier than Gallipoli.

One of New Zealand’s foremost war historians, Glyn Harper will guide 26 New Zealanders on a pilgrimage to Passchendaele for the centenary of the worst military disaster in New Zealand’s history.

House of Travel Palmerston North managing director Stephen Parsons said many of the group had relatives who fought in the battle and Harper, who wrote a definitive book on the massacre of Passchendaele, was leaving five days in advance to re-familiarise himself with the battlefield.

‘‘One of the things Glyn does so well is help people revisit and find the places their relatives likely fought or fell. He makes the history come alive.’’

Passchendaele was part of the Third Battle of Ypres, a WWI campaign that lasted from July to November 1917.

Harper said it was the most glaring example of the British High Command’s careless disregard for the lives of New Zealand soldiers. Seven per cent of all the Kiwis who died in WWI were killed that morning.

Two years earlier the bloody eight-month-long Gallipoli campaign left 7447 Kiwis dead or wounded.

The New Zealand Division suffered almost half the amount of casualties in just two hours on Passchendaele ridge.

In early October 1917, the New Zealand Division, alongside three Australian divisions, had ‘‘stunning success’’ in securing the foothills around the Passchendaele ridge and a German-occupied village, Harper said.

‘‘But, as they took the foothills, the rain bucketed down and turned the whole area into a quagmire... and it was impossible to move the artillery forward.’’

They should’ve waited for the weather to clear, but on October 12 the Anzacs were ordered to storm across 3 kilometres of muddy ground to take the ridge without proper artillery support, Harper said.

‘‘It was an incredible distance in that quagmire, and they were massacred.’’