The fight over a famous war photo
It is arguably the most famous photo of New Zealand soldiers in World War I. Now two families claim it is their grandfather – and one says it is not even of New Zealanders. James Hollings investigates further.
Taken a few minutes before the last major battle of the war, almost 100 years ago to the day, the photo has been on the cover of two books, and featured in several others.
Something about this image has drawn people to it. One of only two surviving photos from that war known to show dead New Zealand soldiers, it seems to contain in one tableau the full palette of war – courage, exhaustion, suffering, mud, and death.
Also, it is an enigma – while several soldiers stand ready to go over the top, one remains lying down, looking at his dead comrade. One is left wondering what he was thinking – sadness, despair, exhaustion, anger, indifference?
Until now, little has been known about this iconic photo.
Now two separate families have come forward, both claiming the reclining man was their grandfather, and one family says it is not of New Zealanders at all.
The photograph was taken early on November 4, 1918, a few minutes before New Zealand and British troops began what was to be the last major battle of the war, the liberation of the town of Le Quesnoy, in France.
It is part of a historic series of photographs taken by the New Zealand Division’s official photographer, Henry Armytage Sanders, known as the ‘‘H’’ series. Sanders, a Londoner, was recruited for his camera and film experience.
Controversy dates back to 1966 when the photo was used on the cover of Travis VC.
It prompted Harold Spark, an Englishman living in Christchurch, to say he was the reclining soldier in the photo, then just 18. He told the Christchurch Star he wanted to correct the impression that the picture showed New Zealand soldiers.
‘‘I want to do this for the honour of my old regiment and for the greater honour of having served in the front line with men like Dick Travis.’’
Historian Chris Pugsley agrees, and has captioned the photo as being of Spark in his new book, Le Quesnoy: New Zealand’s Last Battle.
The Alexander Turnbull Library, which holds the original prints, has also repeated the claim.
And there the matter may have rested. Another piece of New Zealand history, blown to pieces. A casualty of memory. Or is it?
There is a different story of this photo, one not told until now. My mother had a copy of Travis VC, which she kept till she died. In it, she marked in pencil ‘‘Uncle Jack’’, with an arrow pointing to the photo.
Jack was John Leo O’Keefe, a flaxcutter from Palmerston North. Jack and his brother Bert (my mother’s father) enlisted in 1916. The O’Keefe families grew up with the story that Jack was the reclining man in the photo.
It is a story that is treasured. His surviving son, Des O’Keefe, and daughter Marilyn Holmes, both repeated the story to me, as did his grandson and daughter, Brian and Christine Hickton. Each of them has copies of Travis VC.
For them, the idea that it could be someone else is inconceivable.
The story of the O’Keefe brothers, and their part in NZ’s WWI story, has not been told. It is not the usual story, of heroism; of medals, or daring feats. If it is of a different kind of heroism; of survival, and service.
Jack and Bert came from a Catholic family. Both were born in Temuka but moved north with the family. Like their father, they cut flax. They biked the roughly 40km from Palmerston North to Foxton to cut flax, then biked home again. It didn’t pay much, but it made them great cyclists, winning many local derbies.
Enlisting in 1916, too late for Gallipoli, they were sent to Britain, to swell the ranks of the rapidly expanding New Zealand Division on the Western Front, in France. Jack was sent to the 3rd NZ Rifle Brigade, Bert to the 2nd Wellington Battalion. Both were wounded, Jack a shell splinter through the leg, Bert a bullet in the left arm.
After being injured again, in 1918, Jack was granted three weeks’ leave, early in October. He went to visit his father’s birthplace in Ireland. While there, he went to a fortune-teller, who predicted he would be on a ship that would sink, and all would die.
Later, on his way back to Dublin, he met a man who persuaded him to go the races. After a few too many beers, he missed his ship back to England, which he said later was sunk. The Dublin-Holyhead ferry, Leinster, was torpedoed on October 10, with the loss of 501 people.
Jack rejoined his unit, the 3rd Light Trench Mortar Battery, on October 19, just in time for the assault on Le Quesnoy, a small town near the French border with Belgium. It is an old fortress, surrounded by massive earthen and brick walls.
The New Zealand Division was given the job of taking the fortress. On the morning of November 4, 1918, it began the assault.
The story of how the Division’s 3rd Rifle Brigade scaled the walls and liberated the semi-starving inhabitants from four years of German occupation has been told many times.
Jack’s unit was assigned to go in with the assault troops. At dawn, on November 4, he would have been waiting on the ‘start line’ in a sunken road about a kilometre west of the town.
There had been rain during the night, and although the day dawned clear, there was mud underfoot. The men were grateful, because it dulled the impact of German shells, fired by the nervous defenders. One hit home, killing 11 of the 1000-odd men gathered.
A few minutes later, a photographer’s cart trundled down the line. With it was Henry Sanders. As the men rested, in full battle kit, Sanders, in officer’s uniform, and with an English accent, told them to stand up and pose for photographs.
Jack, his family say, was lying down when Sanders pulled up. He was tired, having just lugged their mortar and its heavy ammunition up to the line. He also knew the man lying dead in front of him, killed only a few minutes before.
He was in no mood to pose for a photo shoot. As he was not technically under English command, he felt no obligation to obey an English officer, his grand-daughter Christine says.
When the attack began, Jack’s unit would have been just behind the leading infantry advancing across open fields into German machine-gun and rifle fire. Eventually, the Germans surrendered.
Coming near the end of the war, it was, by the standards of the time, a well-planned and executed feat of arms, by a crack division at the peak of its efficiency. Casualties (189 killed) were low, for the time, and the victory achieved with almost no damage to the town or its people.
The generals, the soldiers, and people back home were rightfully proud, and that tone of celebration has continued to this day.
Less dwelt upon, though evident in German accounts of the battle, is the systematic looting of German prisoners of any valuables (though both sides did it), and the fact that the Germans were demoralised, outnumbered, and badly fed.
For them, it was a very minor battle in the last week of a war that was already lost.
After the war, Jack returned to Palmerston North. He married Molly Ennis, and they had four children.
Bert came back too, and married Constance Kavanagh. They lived a couple of blocks from each other, played for the same rugby teams, including Manawatu¯ . Both took up boxing, Jack becoming Manawatu¯ middleweight champ, and Bert North Island flyweight champ. Jack died in 1970, Bert in 1974. So there it is. Two brothers, two lives, two wars, survived.
But what about that photo? Was it really him? Or was Jack mistaken? Perhaps it could have been someone else? Harold Spark?
Spark certainly thought so. Travis VC told the story of Dick Travis, a tough, ex-stockman with a passing resemblance to Barry Crump, who specialised in slipping into German trenches at night and killing them. He was given the VC for his exploits. He was killed a few weeks before the war ended.
Spark’s unit was just to the right of the New Zealanders. His grandson, Alan Holdaway, is convinced his grandfather is correct. ‘‘My grandfather not only identified himself but several of the soldiers around him.’’
If O’Keefe were alive, he would no doubt disagree. In fact, he did disagree, at the time.
His daughter, Vivienne Hickton, wrote to the Star in 1966, disputing Spark’s claim. ‘‘My father, John Leo O’Keefe, has had the picture for more than 45 years . . . the photograph was given to my father by a friend in the War Records
‘‘My grandfather not only identified himself but several of the soldiers around him.’’
Office who recognised him.’’
Vivienne’s daughter, Christine, recalls her grandfather saying that when asked to stand and pose for the photo he could not be bothered. ‘‘So he clearly remembered the photo being taken!’’
Historian Pugsley thinks the weight of evidence is in favour of Spark’s claim.
Other historians disagree. Glyn Harper, Professor of War Studies at Massey University, is ‘‘90 per cent’’ sure the photo is of New Zealand soldiers, because it was used in the official history of the NZ Rifle Brigade, written by one its officers and who had made every attempt to be as accurate as possible. It is also part of the H-series taken by the New Zealand Division official photographer, Henry Sanders.
‘‘It’s part of a sequence of images taken in the same location and there is no dispute about the others.’’
Art historian Sandy Callister, who used it on the cover of her book The Face of War, agrees. Hugh Stewart, commander of the 2nd Canterbury Battalion, used the image in his book about the NZ Division. ‘‘He would know the people in the photo and the background of it. Surely he would get it right?’’
Part of the problem is that there is little in the photo to identify the soldiers. They wore a battledress common to most British troops.
However, New Zealand soldiers in the 3rd Brigade wore distinctive black patches on their shoulders, to denote which battalion they belonged to. Diamonds for the 1st battalion, squares for the second, triangles for third, and upside-down triangles for the 4th battalion. None of the soldiers in H1122 seem to have black square patches, which they should have, if O’Keefe is correct. Or do they?
The most commonly used version of the photo is taken from a sepia-toned print held in the Alexander Turnbull Library. It is printed with high contrast, which means little detail comes through.
While researching this article, I found another print, a low-contrast version digitised by the library and known as F92.
Auckland Museum forensic photo historian Shaun Higgins used high-contrast digital reproduction and found what seem to be black squares on the shoulders of the soldiers, confirming O’Keefe’s story.
There is one other important clue that emerges from F92. In it, you can clearly see a small house in the background, not visible in the published versions of the photo.
To me, it appeared identical to a house in two other photos from the H-series, taken on the same day, known as H1309, and H1138. These photos not only include what appears to be the same house, but also include New Zealand soldiers with much clearer distinctive black patches of 2 and 4 battalions. Could this be proof that H1122 was taken in the same place?
Harper agrees, as does Higgins. Pugsley and Holdaway are not convinced – they argue that one witness has placed the house as being further south, in an area close to the British sector where Spark’s unit was.
I wrote to authorities in Le Quesnoy. Norbert Bailleux, a resident who is also a member of the NZ-Le Quesnoy Association, says he recognised the house as a former estaminet (pub) as the owner worked with his grandfather. He is sure it is on a now-buried section of the old Chemin de Sauchelet, just north of the road between the towns of Beaudignies and Le Quesnoy (see map). ‘‘I do not think I’m wrong.’’
If true, this places H1122 firmly in the New Zealand sector of the attack, not the British sector. But is it O’Keefe?
Higgins thinks it likely. He did a facial analysis of a photo of O’Keefe in uniform, taken in 1916, and compared it to the reclining soldier. ‘‘The earlier portrait is close. I’d say a 75 per cent match but the . . . angle makes this difficult.’’
For both families, the memories are cherished, regardless of who is correct. The O’Keefes intend to donate the negative of H1122 to the Alexander Turnbull Library.
But the memories they will keep as their own, says Brian Hickton. ‘‘It’d be nice if they did say it was Jack O’Keefe. But it doesn’t really matter. We know.’’
If true, O’Keefe’s story gives an extra layer of meaning to an already iconic image. As well as capturing a moment of action in the front line, it is a striking record of resistance, if not to war, at least to pretence about war, when your mate’s body lies at your feet.
Who of us would not wish they would have the presence of mind to also say no, were they in the same situation?