Soldier’s heroism on tragic night recognised
LAST Saturday I was privileged to attend a ceremony at Linton army camp, near Palmerston North, in honour of Private David Edward Whawhai Stewart.
Exactly 32 years previously, on August 13 1990, Pte Stewart died in a blizzard on Mt Ruapehu in an army training exercise that went hideously wrong. He was
23.
Pte Stewart would almost certainly have survived had it not been for his selfless efforts to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. He could have saved himself by hunkering down in his sleeping bag, his only protection against the raging snowstorm.
Instead he repeatedly exposed himself to the elements, moving around in nearzero visibility in an attempt to help others in the party and keep up morale. He eventually died of exposure after his sleeping bag blew away as he attempted to share it with two comrades.
Pte Stewart was one of six young men, five soldiers and one naval rating, who died that night. It was the worst loss of life experienced by the New Zealand Defence Force in a single event since World War 2.
Only now is his heroism being properly recognised. At Saturday’s event, a plaque in Pte Stewart’s honour was unveiled at the Linton headquarters of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment’s 1st Battalion, of which he was a member.
It was jointly unveiled by his mother, Kathleen Kotiro Stewart, of Whakatane, and the head of the army, Majorgeneral John Boswell. Mrs Stewart gave a speech that was quiet, dignified and free of any hint of reproach for the failings that led to her son’s death. The waiata that the crowd spontaneously launched into after she had spoken would have left only the most hardhearted attendee dryeyed.
The ceremony marked the completion of the first step in a patient and longrunning campaign by several former army officers to ensure that Pte Stewart’s actions are belatedly recognised. In the second phase, they will try to persuade the Government that he should posthumously be awarded the New Zealand Cross, New Zealand’s highest honour for acts of bravery in peacetime. Its hard to see what argument could be made against their case.
Pte Stewart’s heroism has been recognised previously, but inexcusably not until nine years after the event. Even then he was awarded only the New Zealand Bravery Medal, the lowest possible honour. The Bravery Medal is awarded simply for unqualified ‘‘acts of bravery’’ as opposed to the New Zealand Cross, which is given for ‘‘acts of great bravery in extreme danger’’ a more appropriate honour for a man who knowingly risked (and ultimately sacrificed) his life for others.
Pte Stewart was not the only hero on Ruapehu that night. Fellow soldiers Sonny Te Rure (now known as Sonny Tavake) and Brendon Burchell were similarly honoured in 1999. Both survived the 1990 ordeal and attended Saturday’s dedication ceremony.
Tavake’s actions on the mountain were no less courageous and selfless than Stewart’s. The two men ended up sharing a sleeping bag which blew away when they invited a third soldier, whose own sleeping bag had been lost (and who died), to join them.
Burchell, meanwhile, set out with one of the group’s two instructors to get help. But by the time the alarm was raised, it was too late; six young men lay dead in the snow from hypothermia.
Why no push for an upgrade to Tavake’s medal as well as Pte Stewart’s? A pragmatic explanation is that two upgrades might have been too much for the honours system to cope with, and the case for Pte Stewart was considered more emotionally compelling because his heroism resulted in his death.
A pertinent background factor is that for a long time, army chiefs seemed reluctant to acknowledge the heroism of their own men, perhaps not wanting to draw further public attention to the tragedy.
The army would have been embarrassed by the results of a military court of inquiry headed by Colonel Bernard Isherwood, which found the principal cause of the tragedy was that the two instructors were insufficiently skilled and inexperienced in extreme weather conditions. They didn’t even take a radio.
Isherwood, who left the army in 1999, and former warrant officer Bob Davies, have led the charge for Pte Stewart to be appropriately honoured. Isherwood spoke at Saturday’s ceremony and was blunt about the army’s failings: ‘‘We allowed 11 totally inexperienced young men to be exposed to a lethal environment without the appropriate risk management resources in place.’’
Isherwood called the army’s subsequent treatment of Pte Stewart, Tavake and Burchell a travesty. But clearly, enough time has now elapsed for a new generation of senior officers to feel comfortable about acknowledging the failings of the past.
The Linton ceremony was an insight into the esprit de corps that binds soldiers and can motivate ordinary men to do extraordinary things, as happened in Pte Stewart’s case (and frequently occurs in wartime). Most of the 150odd attendees were former soldiers and the majority were Maori. Many had been Pte Stewart’s comrades and had driven long distances to pay their respects.
Bob Davies (a Pakeha), in a speech in 2000, talked about the loyalty and solidarity exhibited by Maori soldiers, saying it encapsulated ‘‘what it means to exist for something other than oneself’’. He told me last week that he had Pte Stewart in mind when he said it.