M¯aori soldiers’ stories preserved

A project bringing the stories of hundreds of Ma¯ ori war veterans to life, is being hailed for preventing the history from being lost forever.

Etera Saddler Ahuriri – one of more than 900 Wairoa veterans, including 220 Ma¯ ori pioneers and 10 nurses, who served during World War I – will be commemorated at a new digital memorial to be unveiled on July 21. The project, dubbed SALUTE Wairoa, was borne in 2013 out of a desire to salvage the stories of those who served who had a connection to Wairoa.

Ahuriri’s daughter, Karen Harris, 72, is one of his last remaining children alive, and said it would be nostalgic finding out her father’s story for the first time. ‘‘It’s funny because I haven’t even read it. I’ve been in Australia for 40-odd years and I’ve only been back in New Zealand say about five years, so I didn’t know anything about it until John [Chaffey] rang me and told me what was going on.’’

Chaffey, of Gisborne, researched Ahuriri’s war experience as part of the project.

A Ma¯ ori research unit, alongside the Wairoa RSA and project co-ordinators, contributed to compiling the stories.

They will be told on an interactive touch-table at the Wairoa Museum, and another based in the Wairoa Centennial Library, in diaries, maps, letters, films, timelines, medals and military records.

Ahuriri, who attended Frasertown School near Wairoa, enlisted and trained over the summer of 1915.

In May that year, when Ahuriri was on garrison duty in Malta, he was called to Gallipoli as a reinforcement with the Ma¯ ori Contingent.

But after contracting bronchitis while digging trenches, he was sent back to Wairoa.

By early 1916 he was well enough to set sail with the 4th Reinforcements to Egypt, before going to the Western Front. Bronchitis struck again near the end of the war, and Ahuriri came back to New Zealand on a hospital ship.

Settling in Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast he married Ti Mauhea White. They raised six boys and six girls. He died in May 1981, aged 87.

The touch-table will debut for viewing at 10.30am on July 21 at Wairoa Museum.

AHURIRI WHA¯ NAU Etera Saddler Ahuriri, second from left, rides a camel in front of a pyramid in Egypt. This image was likely taken during the 4th Reinforcements’ Egyptian stopover before departing for the Western Front, in 1916.