Tuesday, October 17, 2017
FATHER Richard Pike leads the small group that attended last week’s 100th anniversary commemoration of Passchendaele at the cenotaph in prayer. Photos Ross McCullough OB 3099-3
Ross McCullough
A SMALL group gathered in front of the Opotiki Cenotaph last Thursday to pay their respects to the 12 Opotiki soldiers who had lost their lives at Passchendaele in Belgium 100 years earlier.
Father Richard Pike began the remembrance service with a prayer, and emphasized the words “grant those who gave the ultimate sacrifice eternal rest.”
Opotiki RSA president Peter Jackson provided some insight into what unfolded on October 12, 1917 at Passchendaele when 843 New Zealand soldiers were killed in one day.
He said New Zealanders began to advance on the Germans at 5.25am on that infamous day, but the mud made it virtually impossible for the Kiwi contingent to bring their heavy guns forward.
With the enemy in front of them and flanking them and surrounded in barbed wire he said what the Opotiki 12 and their fellow countrymen went through was a “private hell”.
The death toll was horrendous and there were 2600 casualties on top of that, he said.
The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association (RSA) called it the “single darkest day” in New Zealand’s military history of the 20th Century.
“At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them,” Mr Jackson said before adding that all he could hope, was that our grandchildren never have the same.
After laying a poppy at the foot of the cenotaph Barbara Jackson said she had gone along to the commemoration to pay her respects.
“I wouldn’t have missed it – they deserve it,” she said of the Opotiki soldiers who lost their lives.
While the turnout for the commemoration was small, returned serviceman from the Vietnam War, Ruka Hudson said remembering what had happened all those years ago was something he and his friends reminded each other of and made a point of attending.
Crosses were put up in front of the cenotaph to represent the Opotiki soldiers who lost their lives between October 2 and 12.
Of the Opotiki soldiers that served their country during WWI, 100 were never to return.