STOICAL PICTURES OFWAR
In handwriting neat, small, big or looped, men posted overseas during the world wars wrote to their loved ones in often stoical style in the face of conditions unimaginable for those at home. Jimmy Ellingham reports.
Poppies from Flanders Fields
In 1916 the front lines of World War I were bogged down in themud. It was the year of the Battle of the Somme, which Britain and France eventually won at huge cost.
Among the Kiwi troops on the other side of the world was George Pilcher, of Halcombe, and among themuddy battle lines was great beauty. Poppies, such as the ones in Flanders Fields, the Greatwar’s battleground of Belgium and northwest France, provided a sea of red that inspired the famous poem by John Mccrae.
George wrote home that year to his parents, Edward and Rose, and included in the letter a special note for his sister Isabel.
With it came two poppies. The now dried and pressed flowers survive in the possession, along with the letter, of George’s son-inlaw Bill Squires, 83, in Feilding.
George tells his sister about the view from one of the trenches: ‘‘It’s just one mass of red poppies for about 1000 yards and it looks so pretty.’’
The letter, addressed to his father, speaks about life in battle. It’s matter of fact, giving relatives information about what is happening in an understated tone.
‘‘I don’t say as I like the trenches much. They are all right in fine weather.’’ Wet days, however, aren’t so good. And before the rains arrived the troops had ‘‘just got things nice and comfortable’’.
‘‘If one gets wet there’s no chance of changing his clothes in the front line. They won’t even let you take your boots off ...
‘‘I had a good look at no-man’s land, at Fritz’s [the German] trench. I did not see Fritzy, but he was like us. He kept his head well down in the trench until nighttime. That’s when the fighting is done.’’
Most of George’s colleagues had taken a look at no-man’s land. An officer and anothermember of the company had even entered a German trench.
The Germans have decent bombs and good snipers, and George says during the day it isn’t safe to put one’s head above the trench for two seconds.
One German had a particular reputation formaking bullets rain over the British trenches, just 65 metres away.
‘‘He has amachine gun and he can play a tune on it. He always strikes at dusk of an evening and at dawn in the morning ... They reckon he has two machine guns and he works one with each hand, in and out.’’
George writes about the constant bombs that leave their side pock marked with craters, but reassures his dad they are returned ‘‘with a little bit more’’.
His thoughts turn to home and alterations Edward was making to the family house: ‘‘I won’t know it when I see it again. I suppose I have seen somany sights now I have almost forgotten what home looks like, but I don’t think it will be long before we are all home again.’’
George was away from New Zealand from October 1915 to May 1919, in Egypt then Europe. His son Ron, 78, thinks he was involved in the deadly 1917 battle at Passchendaele, in Belgium.
George’s brother Charles was killed at the Somme in 1918.
‘‘He never ever talked about the war to us. You want to hear the war stories. I can’t ever remember him talking to anyone much about it really. I was 18 when he died,’’ Ron says.
George, the youngest of 11 children, was gassed and had problems with his breathing in later life. He was also shot near his left elbow, but never said how it happened.
He lived withwife May, who he married in 1922, until his death in 1962, aged 69, and did engineering and farming, and enjoyed playing the piano and accordion.
Ron remembers hid dad being a great shot, too, once hitting a sixpence placed on a fence post from 25 metres away.
Images of war
John Christensen always kept a camera close by.
He won awards for his shots later in life and his snaps of World War II provide a sharp black and white look at his years in North Africa and Italy.
John took hundreds of photos, many of the typical sights such as the pyramids, but also of fellow soldiers in action, firing guns and fighting from the trenches. This was risky business because the military hierarchy frowned upon soldiers taking images during combat.
He regularly wrote home, addressing letters to ‘‘everybody’’, ‘‘all’’, ‘‘Mum and all’’ or just ‘‘Mum’’, as well as his sister Karen. Mumwas Engelke Christensen and his fatherwas Jorgen, although no letterswere addressed to him.
The photos and letters are with John’s son Graham Christensen, 71, in Feilding. Extracts from the letters and John’s pictures were turned into a book by one of John’s granddaughters, Melanie Busch, for her brother Andrew Mackenzie’s 30th birthday.
John started writing when he was in training in Waiouru and Papakura. Military censorswould cut chunks from soldiers’ letters but some remarks got through.
‘‘We have arrived safely at our destination. I amnot permitted to say where, but we are camped within sight of some enormous structures which appear uncommonly like pyramids.’’ he writes.
‘‘We have been in camp now four days and during that time we have had almost one continual sand storm. There is not a green thingwithin miles, nothing but sand, desert and still more sand.’’
Although unable to saywhere he stopped on the way over, he writes of seeing a Buddist temple and paddy fields.
In August 1941 John thanks his family for the parcels from home and tells them of his plans to save money so he can visit Palestine when on leave.
Amonth later conditions had worsened after the move away from camp.
‘‘Gone are the little trips into Cairo, gone are the showers and the plentiful supply ofwater, and gone are the small comforts and conveniences of training camp life.
‘‘Insteadwe have nothing but vast unendingwastes of sand and stones, water strictly rationed and dust unlimited.’’
John says troops were allowed two bottles ofwater a day, from which they shaved, washed and drank.
Later that year and early in 1942, therewas talk of casualties. ‘‘It is very sad and at times hard to realise that men, pals with whom we’ve trained, travelled and lived with for so long have gone, while others are wounded and maimed for life.’’
In 1943, after transferring to Europe, hewrites of awful weather. He returned to Egypt and then went back to Italy. The last letter the family has, from January 29, 1945, talks of snow and snowmen – ‘‘We made a beauty in the image of Hitler.’’
John’s parents, originally from Denmark, moved from Tauranga to Palmerston North when he was young, and then to Linton. He attended West End and Linton Country schools, then the
‘‘I had a good look at no-man’s land, at Fritz’s [the German] trench. I did not see Fritzy, but hewas like us. He kept his head well down in the trench until nighttime. That’swhen the fighting is done.’’
Technical College on Princes St.
His daughter Joan Mackenzie, 74, says he never talked about the war. The letters and photos stayed formany years with John’s sister Karen and only after her death in 1992 did Joan and Graham read them.
‘‘This was a whole new side to him that we never knew,’’ Joan says. ‘‘It explained the way he was. He was a quiet man and quite stern, but never cruel. He loved in his own way.’’
Graham remembers John taking him to Anzac services, but only watching, never taking part in the parade.
John married Kathleen in November 1945. He met her in Papakura before he headed overseas, but the pair didn’t make a commitment to each other in case he didn’t come back.
‘‘During the time he was away, Mum came down and stayed with the family. That probably was a bit daunting,’’ Joan says. Kathleen moved to Palmerston North after the wedding.
John was a carpenter and trained many apprentices down the years. He died in 1986.
Letters and verse
Many letters from the front stuck to the facts, while keeping an upbeat tone.
Palmerston North soldier Geoff Hunt was aman of culture. A singer, who had recordings pressed, hewas also aman who appreciated literature and poetry.
It showed in his letters home from the World War II front lines, where hewas an army truck driver.
On May 10, 1942, he sent his mum elizabeth amother’s Day card from Syria. ‘‘We are miles apart, aren’t we, but the magic in the word ‘mother’ links us together.’’
And in May 1941: ‘‘Just a little something to show you that although your boy is away from you, you are always in his thoughts. Have a lovely day won’t you and keep your chin up.
‘‘Don’t let this war get the better of either yourself or Dad [Alfred]. Remember that things cannot always be rosy.’’
Geoff quotes an Ernest Dawson poem:
‘‘They are not long the days of wine and roses
‘‘Out of amisty dream
‘‘Our path emerges for awhile then closes
‘‘Within a dream.’’
‘‘Look after each other you two dear people and what a time we shall have by and by.’’
These letters, as well as Geoff’s photos from the war, live with his daughter Yvonne Macnamara, 73, in her Palmerston North home.
She and sister Kathryn Douglas, 70, take Stuff through their father’s neat, clear writing, and its loving construction.
Geoff was born in London in 1917 and his family moved to Wellington in the winter of 1924, where he stayed until hemarried after the war. He attended Rongotai College.
In 1940 he began training in Trentham before being shipped overseas.
Unlike many returned servicemen, Geoff didn’t mind talking about the war. ‘‘Dad talked a lot about it because it was big part of his life,’’ Kathryn says. ‘‘A lot of them closed up about it.’’
Yvonne says: ‘‘But he was very good with words and very good at writing. He was lucky that he could express himself well.’’
There were moments when what he’d lived through hit home afterwards. The family recall Geoff hitting the ground when planes were dropping fake bombs at Tangimoana Beach one day when he was fishing there.
Yvonne remembers her dad saying one of his mates saved his life by throwing himself on a grenade that landed nearby.
‘‘He had really great mates that he went through theway with and he kept in touch until they died.’’
After three years away Geoff was furloughed home in 1943 because of a hernia and flat feet – conditions he had when he joined the army.
His tour of duty also led to his marriage. Before going towar Geoff worked for Woolworths in Wellington. Employees of the company were asked to write to those serving overseas and a Palmerston North woman called Joyce Mccormick picked Geoff’s name from a list.
She did so because Hunt was her mother’s maiden name. She wasn’t related to Geoff.
The two struck up correspondence and married in 1943, a union that lasted until Joyce’s death in 1995. The pair didn’t keep their letters.
They made their home in Palmerston North, where Geoff worked for a furniture upholsterer then a venetian blind company, while raising their three children – the two sisters and brother Ross, 67 – on their large Terrace End section.
Geoff Hunt died in 2008.
‘‘Just a little something to show you that although your boy is away from you, you are always in his thoughts. Have a lovely day won’t you and keep your chin up. Don’t let this war get the better of either yourself or Dad [Alfred]. Remember that things cannot always be rosy.’’
Geoff Hunt