Following the footsteps of his father
HE lives in Wellington, but Anthony McMaster will be representing Otago’s contribution to the battle of Le Quesnoy at centenary events in France next month.
Le Quesnoy, a French town held by the Germans for almost the entirety of World War 1, was liberated on November 4, 1918 — the last significant military action by New Zealand troops in the war.
The 3rd New Zealand (Rifle) Brigade led the assault — a battle significant for soldiers scaling the medieval walls of the town on scaling ladders.
One of the soldiers involved in the battle was Rifleman Harold Yates McMaster — Anthony McMaster’s father.
‘‘He was in the exact same battalion and company as Lieutenant Averill; he was the man who climbed up the ladder and got the troops in to the fortress,’’ Mr McMaster said.
This week, Mr McMaster — whose family descends from William Cargill, a founding father of Dunedin — leaves for Europe, where he will visit both Le Quesnoy and Passchendaele.
Le Quesnoy is the site of one of the four New Zealand battlefield memorials on the Western Front, and the dramatic story of its capture stands in contrast to the many tragedies New Zealand troops endured in Europe.
The town still remembers its liberators — several landmarks are named after New Zealand or New Zealanders.
Mr McMaster will be a rarity at the commemoration — an immediate descendant of someone who fought in World War 1.
Mr McMaster’s father, an accountant, was born in Dunedin in 1890.
He was around 60 when his son — who has just turned 69 — was born.
‘‘I’m going to be, without a doubt, the youngest direct descendant there of someone who was there — according to the New Zealand Defence Force there’s only going to be around five people there who are direct descendants,’’ he said.
‘‘People ask me if it’s exciting or if it will be emotional. I don’t know. I’m only a link to the past, and when I was young I was sent away to boarding school so I didn’t really know my father, to be honest.’’
There were four McMaster brothers, three of whom played a part in World War 1: Harold, Ralph — who was badly wounded at Passchendaele and invalided home — and Stuart, who arrived in England with other reinforcements just as the war was ending.
‘‘A historian said to me it seemed like with one brother badly injured and another about to be sent off to Les Quesnoy . . . that we will never know, but there seems a good chance that the military decided for the good of the family that one brother stayed in Britain,’’ Mr McMaster said.