Letters from a time of war
Few of the writers remain alive, but their letters from war are a treasured part of our country's story, writes
Tony Kivell lays two telegrams on the table. One brings good news. Wilson (Bill) Penman, Kivell’s uncle, has survived one of New Zealand’s major battles, El Alamein in North Africa.
Dated July 16, 1942, it reads: ‘‘All well and safe. Please don’t worry.’’
The second telegram, received 18 months later in December 1943, was the one all Kiwi families dreaded. The one that began: ‘‘Deeply regret to inform you . . .’’
The two typewritten cards are a tiny part of a giant cache of priceless documents.
Millions of letters, cards and telegrams sent to and from our servicemen and women sent during times of war now sit inside New Zealand homes, kept in old chocolate boxes, satchels or gathered together in old envelopes, often out of sight of everyday life.
Two months ago the Taranaki Daily News joined other Stuff newspapers to ask New Zealanders to share these treasures – to remember, honour and preserve them. The response was an avalanche.
Kivell, 82, spreads out the letters and cards of his uncle. And pulls a book from his satchel – Lest We Forget, a tribute to the 227 men from New Plymouth Boys’ High School who went to war and didn’t come back.
Penman’s chapter tells of successful young man. He won the school’s Bayly Scholarship two years in a row. He played in the First XV, represented Taranaki in swimming, and excelled in the high jump and surf lifesaving.
His over-achieving ways did not stop when he left high school. As a soldier in World War II he was awarded the Military Medal for bravery, and bar.
There were 584 Military Medals awarded to New Zealanders during that six-year conflict involving tens of thousands of Kiwi soldiers, but only four got the bar, which signifies that the recipient received the award again.
Penman was in the 25th Infantry Battalion and served in Greece, North Africa and Italy.
He was awarded the medal for his actions on the night of October 23, 1942, during the attack on Miteiriya Ridge, in North Africa.
‘‘He took over command of the Platoon and was personally responsible for obtaining assistance for many wounded members of his platoon although suffering from wounds himself,’’ the recommendation for the medal said. He got the bar, which signifies that the award was given to him again, for events on March 21 and 22, 1943, throughout the 25th NZ Battalion’s attack on Hill 201 at Djebel Tebaga.
Penman showed ‘‘outstanding qualities of courage and leadership,’’ the citation says.
‘‘During the reorganisation of the objective, this N.C.O., on his own initiative, led his section away to the left flank where the enemy was so fiercely attacked that they became completely demoralised and over 100 prisoners were taken.’’
Kivell carefully goes through the letters. Penman writes in cursive on thin aerogramme paper. The words are small and the ink is faded, but with a small effort the letter reveals itself.
He has just had ‘‘an enjoyable fortnight’s leave in Alexandria’’. He ‘‘thinks he’s going on a course in Palestine’’.
The letters are not the complete record. There are many Kivell does not bring out. There are ones too tattered to handle and others too decimated by the censor’s scissors to make sense of.
‘‘He took over command of the Platoon and was personally responsible for obtaining assistance for many wounded members of his platoon although suffering from wounds himself.’’
‘‘After he was killed they had to go and get his effects. Then they got a special letter to go and get something else – I can’t remember how long after. It was the camera.’’
‘‘They were always censored, all their stuff. Everybody got that treatment.’’
Indeed, the letters he does bring all have some lines that have been blacked out by the censors.
Then there is the second telegram. It informs the family that Penman was killed in action at Sangro River, Italy, on November 30, 1943. He was 34.
In a letter home Penman mentioned he had a new camera, a Zeiss Icon, and in another letter he told the family that it had been stolen, Kivell says.
‘‘After he was killed they had to go and get his effects. Then they got a special letter to go and get something else – I can’t remember how long after. It was the camera. Someone must have had a guilty conscience.’’
There is a card from King George VI expressing sympathy for the family’s loss, and letters from Penman’s officers.
‘‘And that’s the letter from the padre who buried him.’’
There is a postcard with a Peter McIntyre painting. And a Christmas card.
‘‘It must have been sent just before he was killed. He would have sent that around November or probably earlier to get it to New Zealand, because there wasn’t air mail. They came by ship.’’
About 3 million handwritten letters were sent around the world to and from New Zealand during the World Wars.
Among those were pictures Stuart Hayton drew for his young son Nigel, and sent back to New Plymouth from Italy where he was serving in World War II.
In Ha¯ wera, Ivan Schultz has letters from World War II sent from his uncle Valentine Martin Kreegher, known as Mick.
Lesley Herlihy from Inglewood has an embroidered card sent to her grandmother Marion Julian, from Herlihy’s uncle Eric Julian. Dated Feb 17, 1918, the card was sent from France in World War 1.
Mike Corbett from Oakura has letter from his great-uncle Albert Corbert, who lived in Okato. He wrote home to his mother on March 1, 1917, from France.
In the letter he wrote he hoped his brother Ned would get sent home. ‘‘It’s lovely to have him here, but I can’t bear the thought of someone dear to me being in this horrible place. I have come to a conclusion that one is enough for a family.’’
Ned returned home, but Albert was killed at Messines Ridge in June 1917.
The line ‘‘one is enough for a family’’ written by Albert is especially poignant for Mike Corbett. On his mother’s side, the Brown family from Mangorei Rd, six sons went away to war and only three came back.
While people all over the country have kept the cards and letters, some have found their way into the hands of collectors – such as a postcard written by Frank Proctor, a printer from Waitara, to a ‘‘Mrs Holsworthy’’ thanking her for the woollens she had sent him during World War I.
‘‘I don’t know what I would have done without them in the frost.’’ She would recognise the ‘‘Waitara boys’’ in the photo, he wrote.
The eight men pictured on the card, all from Taranaki, included an All Black, and another who would get to wear the black jersey after the war.
On the card Proctor writes: ‘‘Did you see the names of the Waitara chaps on the list of the wounded? Wait until we get over there we’ll give them what ho!’’
The postcard came up for auction on Trade Me and was bought by Southland sheep farmer Iain Davidson, who runs the Unknown Warriors of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force Facebook page.
These photos turn up in all sorts of places, he says. ‘‘People don’t know who they are. I love that history and I try and find the names. It was a great little research project, especially with the added interest of the All Blacks side of things. But oh, so much suffering.’’
Three of the men never came home. D’arcy Roycroft Newell, 22, a bank clerk from New Plymouth, and Arnold Stronghill Bernard, 24, a farm labourer from Lepperton, both died during the war.
As did Reginald Taylor, a labourer from Waitara. He was killed in action near Messines in 1916, aged 28. Taylor was one of 10 All Blacks killed in World War I.
According to the All Blacks website he played for Waimate, Kaponga and Clifton Clubs. He played 34 games for Taranaki from 1910 and was part of the team that won the first Ranfurly shield.
Most of the information about them come from their army files and Davidson matched the photo from other databases, he says. ‘‘So, we are fairly confident we have matched names to the faces.’’
Despite being from Taranaki most of the soldiers were in the Otago regiment, probably making up the numbers.
‘‘The photos I collect, only about a quarter are named and identified. The rest are blank canvases. Imagine yourself sending a photo to parents or friends – no need for a name on the back as they know you,’’ Davidson says.
‘‘The dilemma comes over years later when that knowledge was lost. At least in this case I had surnames to work with.’’
The writer of the postcard, Proctor, returned to New Zealand, as did Tongapo¯ rutu school teacher John Leonard Pennington, and Samuel Cameron, a labourer from Waitara.
Edward Roberts, a bookkeeper and salesman from Waitara, was originally from Wellington. He played two games for the New Zealand All Blacks versus South Africa in 1921, representing the Wellington Athletic club.
Waitara boot importer Edward Lionel Clare was wounded in action in September 1916, during the Somme offensive. His arm was amputated, and he returned to New Zealand in 1917.
As the only way to communicate with loved ones, the postal service was an important department to have running in uncertain times.
A fortnight after landing at Anzac Cove in 1915, the head office of postal facilities was a dugout measuring five feet by six feet, and just five feet high.
There were no sorting sacks, hoppers or desks, and the mail had to be packed up each night to make room to sleep. Shells sometimes burst just outside the dugout in the area where the staff ate and took occasional breaks.
The post office corps at Anzac was 26-strong. Eight men worked aboard a communication ship, with the rest scattered about in twos and threes all over the fighting area.
Bags of mail were carried to and from the trenches while at constant risk of shell and sniper fire. The trip from writer to recipient took seven weeks in either direction.
Manawatu¯ -based historian Aaron Fox says all wartime letters deserved to be preserved.
‘‘That’s the last tangible link with that soldier, or nurse, or whoever . . . One letter is a tower in itself, but a collection of letters . . . that’s a group experience.’’
Oftentimes contents of letters were shared around with soldiers who hailed from the same area, becoming ‘‘community news’’, Fox said. ‘‘Occasionally you’ll get mums talking about their sons . . . or wives to husbands, or fiancees to fiances, trying not to talk about the fact that they are in the business where death is quite a probability, and yet not adhering to talk too much about the future.
‘‘It’s a delicate balancing act to keep everyone going throughout the duration of the war.’’
Military letters do not have to be old to be significant, Fox says.
‘‘For example, letters from local peacekeepers who have served since the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Angola, the Sudan, Mozambique, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the Sinai, Afghanistan, East Timor, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, South Korea – the list goes on – are also invaluable historical documents.
‘‘What the authors thought to commit to paper has much to say about New Zealand’s role in the modern world as a peacemaker and nation builder. Letters, diaries, photographs and souvenirs are the very stuff of history, helping us all to better understand what it means to be a New Zealander.’’