‘I hope we’ve done you proud’

A Timaru serviceman who died overseas more than 60 years ago has finally been laid to rest at home, alongside his parents.

There were emotional scenes as Russell James Craig Moore was honoured at a memorial service at the South Canterbury Returned and Services Association on Saturday.

He is one of 37 service personnel to be repatriated as part of the New Zealand Defence Force’s Te Auraki project.

Under the project, personnel and their dependants buried overseas after January 1, 1955, will be brought home to New Zealand.

Russell was one of the first three to be returned, with his remains arriving at O¯ hakea Air Force Base near Palmerston North last Monday.

His sister, Colleen Walker, was there to welcome him home nearly 62 years after his death. She had been instrumental in the return of her brother.

‘‘That this return would happen is beyond our dreams. I hope we have done you proud.’’

Russell was just 19, and in his first year of Royal New Zealand Navy service as an engineer, when he died after an accident in the engine room of the HMNZS Lachlan in Pago Pago, American Samoa, on July 9, 1956.

On Saturday, he was finally laid to rest beside his parents in the Timaru Cemetery.

Before 1955, it was government policy to inter fallen New Zealand personnel overseas. Between 1955 and 1971, they could be brought home at their families’ expense.

From March, it was decided the remains of all personnel buried overseas after January 1, 1955, would be repatriated.

In 1971, the Government began picking up the bill but the policy was not backdated to 1955 when this change occurred.