Kiwi couple pays homage to fighting forbears
IF the horror of the Battle of the Somme were happening now, Dennis and Margaret Dawson’s two 20-something sons would most likely be among it.
The couple are one of just 40 Kiwis drawn in a ballot to take part in and Anglo-French commemoration the Battle of the Somme on Friday at Longueval, France.
Another ceremony on September 15 will mark New Zealand’s involvement, 100 years after Kiwi forces entered the fight.
In September 1916, 15,000 Kiwi troops were sent to the Western Front to fight at the Somme.
More than 2000 were killed, 6000 were wounded.
Wellington’s Dennis Dawson is a military history buff whose great uncles Thomas and Dick Hodgkinson both fought there. Thomas was later wounded in the Battle of Messines and was invalided home while Dick served out the whole of the war.
Dick later died – aged 39 – of tuberculosis, triggered by what many in the family think was his exposure to mustard gas attacks, while Thomas lived into his 80s.
Dennis said he wanted to go back to the scene of battle to ‘‘stand in the spot and get the lay of the land and see what they walked into’’.
Margaret Dawson’s grandfather Alfred Conway fought at the Somme and was later honoured for his devotion to duty at the Battle of Passchendaele.
To visit the sites her grandfather had so bravely fought at was a ‘‘wonderful thing,’’ she said.
‘‘To actually go somewhere where your own blood has fought and served so meritoriously is quite special. I feel moved.
‘‘People think about their forebears and at Gallipoli you realise how horrible it was – having a 100 year commemoration really puts it in the spotlight.’’
It’s a feeling keenly shared by Social Development Minister Anne Tolley, whose two grandfathers both fought and KEVIN STENT/FAIRFAX NZ. survived the Somme.
Her paternal grandfather Charles Hick fought for the British in the Middlesex Regiment and she recalls her grandmother quipping that ‘‘he went away for a territorial weekend and didn’t come back for five years.’’ Hick also fought at Passchendaele.
Herbert Norris, her maternal grandfather, joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in London and was wounded in Gallipoli.
They ‘‘patched him up and sent him back to the Somme as a cook,’’ she said.
Hick died in 1972 and Norris in 1956.
Neither man liked to talk about the war, a stance that was respected by a generation of families who were touched by the fighting.
‘‘The Somme is a battle where so many lives were lost – people talk about it with the awe of the carnage and loss of life.
‘‘I expect the commemorations will be extremely moving,’’ Tolley said.
Tolley flew out on Friday as part of the New Zealand delegation.