Armistice Day: Lest we forget the forgotten
The entry for lieutenant Richard Angel on the Auckland War Memorial Museum’s digital cenotaph reads: ‘‘Bravery in attack on Turkish trenches on Bauchops Hill and removing wire entanglements in Chailak Dere, Gallipoli, on August 6th. Led his section with the utmost dash.’’
For this action he was awarded the Military Medal.
Angel, a veteran of Gallipoli the Palestine Campaign and the trenches of the Western Front, is one of many World War I veterans whose graves have been left to dilapidate because of an unfortunate loophole that makes their graves ineligible for continued maintenance.
Angel and the graves of Taoho Rewiri and Thomas Barlow have fallen into disrepair because they do not qualify as war graves, nor are they in a dedicated service section of the cemetery. There isn’t one at Shortland Cemetery.
Only those Great War soldiers who served and died between August 4, 1914 and August 31, 1921 are entitled to maintained war graves.
A war grave is maintained and replaced, when needed, by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. A service section on the other hand, is maintained by Veterans’ Affairs.
Angel, Barlow and Rewiri all died after the 1921 cutoff and were buried in a cemetery without a services section.
If you had served and died after August 1921 one was only granted a small carrera marble plaque embossed with lead type from the local RSA – to be maintained at your family’s discretion. The three buried at the Shortland Cemetery do not qualify to have their graves repaired and restored simply because they died too late after the war and were interred at a cemetery without a services section.
On Friday, Armistice Day, that will change. Angel and his comrades will formally receive their due respect.
Placed on their graves will be a white, timber cross complete with their rank, service number, unit and military honours. The crosses have been assembled by the members of the Thames’ Menzshed in a joint venture with the town’s RSA.
Constructed over three Mondays, the wooden crosses represent only three of the roughly 45 other veterans in the Thames area that fall into the same unfortunate loophole. There are likely hundreds, if not thousands more across the country.
There isn’t really a leader to the project, and there’s some hesitation to declare one because of employment concerns. Instead, RSA president Ken Last-Harris, Menzshed chairperson Terry Mackay and local historian Russell Skeet are spearheading the project.
‘‘We don’t care if anybody knows who started the project, we, just think it’s a cause worth caring about,’’ they all say in unison.
Men like Rewiri, Angel and Barlow are those who defy the call of us not to forget. They have become invisible through an unfortunate combination of fate and oversight.
Last-Harris says the project is something all involved are pleased with.
In the case of men like Rewiri and Angel who died young, there is seldom any immediate family to look after the small marble plaques that had been bestowed in their name. Skeet says he can understand why some individuals’ graves are not as well maintained as others and understands that sometimes loopholes exist, and there are people who have to make difficult choices about which graves to fund and which not.