Passchendaele: NZ’s darkest hour

Stamp issue honours Dannevirke mum Ellen Knight, who sacrificed three sons

It was New Zealand’s darkest hour. On just one senseless day, 846 young Kiwi soldiers were massacred in a boggy foreign field. It took more than two days to clear away the dead and injured. They were cannon-fodder.

Telegrams darkened the doors of many homes in young New Zealand. Parents, siblings, lovers, children, they all mouthed the name of the tiny Belgian village, unsure of its pronunciation. Scared to say it aloud. Sobbing. Passchendaele.

Now a century on, most New Zealanders are still unsure how to say it, let alone know its significance. After all, it’s not Gallipoli — the war story taught in schools, watched on TV, and marched for on Anzac Day.

So how do you tell the story of such a monstrous military disaster? A bloodbath born out of an all-toocommon perfect storm: heavy rain, deep mud, “friendly fire”, unshelled German machinegun emplacements, bungling British generals.

For the centenary of World War I, New Zealand Post is issuing a series of stamps over five years to explain the wider story of the war “through the eyes of an everyday New Zealander”.

This week sees the release of 1917 The Darkest Hour commemorative stamps series.

It follows the heartbreaking story of Dannevirke mother Ellen Knight, who lost three sons in the “War to End All Wars”.

After hostilities broke out in early August 1914, men across the country volunteered in their droves, for King and Country, with many sensing a chance for adventure and travel.

While Ellen lived in Dannevirke, husband Herbert and their sons worked a farm between Whakatane and Opotiki.

Although farm workers were exempt from going to war in those early days, George Bernard Knight and younger brother Herbert Augustine Knight felt duty-bound and enlisted to do their bit.

“Men must work while women weep,” Ellen replied to George after he wrote to say he was signing up.

“I had a good blub and feel better,” added the mother of 10 children aged between 6 and 23.

“I dare say it will mean the three [boys] but I am ready to do my duty always as you are to do yours. But please God you may not be wanted or if you are will be spared to come back ‘heroes’.”

George and Herbert sailed for Egypt in February 1915 with the 3rd Reinforcements of the Otago Infantry Regiment, before landing at Gallipoli.

“Have no fear, we will both stick together and come back safe,” George wrote home. It wasn’t to be. On May 9, just two weeks into the ultimately doomed stalemate,