Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day—Mark Knopfler (H/T Bob Oldfield’s YouTube channel). Lovely.

Lives lost and found, messed up. Grief, well-being and woe. The best and the worst of times.

World War II (we number them—may we never get to III) brought my parents together—Canadian and Kiwi. So, my life and the lives of our children and grandchildren are a product of it.

Gene+

A Remembrance Day Tale

It being Remembrance Day, I've been thinking of family members who were caught up in the world wars. My father-in-law, Bill Ward, served as an artillery officer in Italy with the New Zealand forces in World War II, Jude's uncle was killed in a bomber over Germany and my Dad, who got his wings in New Zealand, trained here in Alberta where he met my mother, and got to England just in time to miss it all.

My paternal grandfather served in World War I. Some years ago I applied to the New Zealand Defence Force for his New Zealand Expeditionary Force service personnel file. The photocopied file came quickly and at no cost. Like so many veterans, he didn't talk about his experiences much. The file gave me some tantalizing details about his war years about which I wish I'd been able to ask him. I thought he'd served at Gallipoli, but when I took a closer look at his file today, I found he hadn't. The dates don't work.

Darcy Syia Packwood enlisted on July 1st, 1915. His occupation was listed as Drover (as in sheep), his Religion: Petone (a city) Salvation Army (I don't think I ever saw him go to church), his Unit: Wellington Mounted Rifles, Rank: Trooper. That is then crossed out and replaced with NZ Field Artillery, Gunner.

In September he shipped out for what the service record calls the "Egyptian" theatre of the war. His NZ Field Artillery Casualty Form—Active Service (which, despite its rather ominous title is only the record sheet that travelled with a soldier from posting to posting) records that he was "posted to unit" on October 4th, 1915. Not sure which unit, but it was stationed in a place called Mudros on the island of Lemnos which looks like it was a supply area for the Gallipoli campaign (which ran from April 25th, 1915 to January 1916). He was there for five weeks before being admitted to hospital to be treated for diarrhoea.

Sarpi Rest Camp & Hospitals on West Mudros peninsula from Dr. Herschel Harris' war photographs in France and Lemnos in the State Library of NSW (PXA 403) Actually taken in November 1915 when he was there!

After three and a half weeks in the hospital he was "discharged to duty" and embarked on the SS Princess Ena to travel to Salonika where he was attached to 12th Corps HQ as Batman for Brigadier General George Spafford Richardson.

SS Princess Ena: Kingsway (W.H.Smith) postcard

After three months in Salonika, he returned to the artillery and shipped to France, arriving January 22nd, 1917.

After just over a year in France, during which time there are no details of what he was doing, he was "detached on leave to UK" for three weeks returning in February, 1918, for just two days before being evacuated to hospital with (and I've only just noticed this this afternoon!) venereal disease!!! (Grandfather!!??). He was discharged from hospital in early April before rejoining his unit in France on April 23rd.

On September 29th, he was "Wounded in Action," gunshot wounds; arm, right, and knee, left. This could have been in the Fifth Battle of Ypres. It was the end of the fighting for him. After another spell in hospital which looks as if it may have lasted several months, on February 7th, 1919, he embarked in Liverpool on the SS Ajana for New Zealand where he was discharged from the army on April 23rd, 1919, having spent three years and 224 days overseas.

SS Ajana

My mother told me Grandpa was engaged when he went off to war. I don't know the woman's name, but I understand that when he got home he walked over the hill from Wellington and Petone into the Wairarapa, where she lived, only to find that she'd died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. I don't know the story of how he and my grandmother met, but I do know that she had also lost her first fiancé in an accident. Hard beginnings.

Thought provoking pre-Remembrance Day words from The Mad Padre

…from yesterday's sermon at the chapel:

As we prepare to gather at cenotaphs this week, it is a time of uncertainty and of fear for we who are the descendents of the Empire that Kipling celebrated. As in Kipling’s poem “Recessional”, there is a sense of things receding and fading. Even our neighbours to the south, whose Pax Americana followed the British Empire, now seem to sense that their best days are behind them. The West seems to lose purpose. New powers like China rise. Economies falter. Armies and fleets become burdeonsome to maintain, and their ability to bring change to a complex world seems suddenly to be in question. If our “captains and kings” have not quite departed, we doubt their ability to lead us anywhere good. This Remembrance Day we look from the pride and victories of the past to the uncertainties of the future. As we gather at cenotaph and monument this week, we as Canadians and Britons can remember with pride the accomplishments of those who went before us, and know with certainty what is at stake “lest we forget”. As Christians we can look forward with confidence to the future, trusting not in our own strength but in the promise of our King and Saviour that “I have conquered the world”.

I, too, have noticed a "best days are behind them" thing in the west these days. In our efforts to be inclusive and tolerant out of a good compassion, we surrender core values. Sometimes it is necessary to say "No" because of love.

King and Saviour, indeed! Jesus. All here.

He's got interesting stuff over on Facebook, too.

We Will Remember Them

Went to Riverside Park for the 11am part of the Remembrance Day observance today. It always moves me. I love the ugly helicopter that flies over and drops poppies. I love the uniforms (I'm sorry, I prefer the Brits', although the Canadian Afghanistan vets in their desert colours looked cool). I appreciated that the prayers were decidedly and unapologetically Christian. It was good that the crowd applauded the troops and vets as they marched away from the ceremony...the first time I've experienced that.

I go to honour my grandfather who was at Gallipoli and Ypres in World War I. I go to honour my father-in-law who was a Monte Cassino with the NZ Artillery, Jude's Uncle Bob, another Kiwi, killed on a bombing raid over Germany...so far from home...and my father, also a Kiwi, who arrived in the UK too late to fight, but who went and, as a result, met my mother while training in Alberta.

I go also to honour the civilians who suffered and died.

They are not all heroes, just ordinary folk like you and I who were carried away by forces and circumstances too sweeping and huge to manage, comprehend or avoid.

Great tragedy in the midst of which the best and worst of the human condition is experienced.

Lord, have mercy on us all, but especially on our people swept into harm's way by the great current affairs of global politics to places like Afghanistan; on their families and those who have already lost loved ones.