LIVING MEMORIES
Not all war memorials are sober cenotaphs. Ahead of Anzac Day tomorrow, Peter Dragicevich takes a tour of some of the more unusual and useful memorials around Auckland.
If you need a demonstration of the trauma that World War I inflicted on New Zealand, you need only ponder our abundance of war memorials. Even the smallest towns have them, often with lists of the fallen which seem entirely out of proportion to the size of the settlement. The war was a conflict that left a staggering 6 per cent of the entire population injured or dead, so it’s no surprise that the postwar mood was for monuments with gravitas that respectfully reflected the collective grief. Mostly this took the form of sombre plinths and obelisks, and it’s around these that many of us will gather to see in the dawn tomorrow.
Although they may get a bit misty-eyed on Anzac Day morning, Kiwi veterans are, by and large, a practical bunch. But it wasn’t until after World War II that projects memorialising the dead by providing something useful for the living became more common.
One early example that demonstrated that respectfulness and recreation could be successfully combined was the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Completed in 1929, it was designed by Grierson, Aimer & Draffin, an architectural firm helmed by three former servicemen, two of whom had been wounded at Passchendaele.
You certainly couldn’t argue that this magnificent building is lacking in gravitas. Inscriptions and bas-reliefs on the exterior clearly signal its memorial status, and Māori motifs are cleverly incorporated into the ornamental plasterwork inside. The entire top floor is devoted to “War and Remembrance”, with its centrepiece, the World War 1 Hall of Memories, serving as a secular shrine. This space has the grace of a cathedral, complete with stained glass, a marble altar and the names of hundreds of fallen Aucklanders etched into its walls.
The cenotaph out the front was modelled on Sir Edwin Lutyens’ original, which had been unveiled nine years earlier in London’s Whitehall. Famously, the Kiwi architects couldn’t afford to buy the blueprints, so Keith Draffin went to the movies every night for a week to make sketches based on newsreel footage.
Following World War II, Draffin teamed up with his son to tackle the extension, which doubled the size of the building. You have to look closely at the exterior to spot the point where the Portland stone of the original gives way to carefully disguised cement. Another shrine was added for the fallen of World War II, which has been expanded to include the names of service people killed in subsequent conflicts. A poignant inscription heads one of the few blank walls: “Let these panels never be filled”.
Yet memorials don’t have to be grand to be touching. On the St Heliers waterfront, a drinking fountain honours a local scoutmaster killed in action in 1916. Nearby, an arc of black granite with wooden seats built into it invites us to “Rest and Remember” the fallen from six conflicts, from the Boer War through to Vietnam.
There are further memorial seats up the hill at Te Pane o Horoiwi (Achilles Point). The remarkable views, the carved pou and the monument to the HMS Achilles (which played a pivotal role in the Battle of the River Plate) vie for attention, but it’s the plaques on th white seats that are most affecting.
The first was donated by Private Ted Sc in memory of his friend Sergeant Dougla O’Stanley, a pilot who died while serving i England in 1940. The second was donate by Ted Scherer’s dad in honour of his son who died fighting in Italy five years later. B men were in their 20s and buried in diffe countries, yet are united in memory at th beautiful lookout.
In 1947 the old New Lynn Borough Cou commissioned a highly functional memo square complete with a kindergarten, libr Plunket rooms and sports facilities. The rebuilt New Lynn War Memorial Library is the centrepiece today, along with 12 red-b columns and a pergola, under which are
In the 1950s, Mt Wellington opened a la War Memorial Park on the banks of the Tā River (incorporating sports grounds, chan rooms and a pavilion), Onehunga built a p war memorial swimming pool and Howic nifty 16-sided war memorial community c It wasn’t until 1965 that Titirangi got its wa memorial park, including a wonderful woo lined community hall and library.
Perhaps the most quintessentially CitySails monument of them all is an unassum structure at Narrow Neck Beach. It’s hard imagine a more fitting memorial to a bun enthusiastic local sailors than the sweet li memorial starting tower that the Wakater Boating Club erected in 1960, in honour o a staggering 10 of their members who die during World War II.