M¯aori soldiers’ service remembered

A project bringing the stories of hundreds of Ma¯ ori war veterans to life is being hailed by wha¯ nau for preserving the history.

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. John Chaffey, of Gisborne, researched Ahuriri’s war experience as part of the project, dubbed SALUTE Wairoa.

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 touchtable 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, he was called to Gallipoli. But after contracting bronchitis, he was sent back to Wairoa. In early 1916 he returned to Egypt, before going to the Western Front in France.

Ahuriri returned home on a hospital ship near the end of the war. Settling in Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast, he married Ti Mauhea White. He died in May 1981, aged 87.

IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF Wattie and Bev Meadowcroft sun themselves outside their cold house.

AHURIRI WHA¯ NAU Second from left, Etera Saddler Ahuriri was in Egypt three times.