Passchendaele
Sir: I greeted Gavin Stamp's article on war graves (The silent witnesses', November 7) with great sadness but also pleasure at the recognition of these moving and often forgotten monuments.
I too have spent many days exploring these cemeteries while each day returning through the Menin Gate to lodgings in Ypres. None but a handful of the descen- dants of the 'Anzacs' have any idea of the suffering of New Zealand and Australian soldiers who fought in France and Flanders from 1916 to 1918. Our popular military consciousness seems to cut off after Galli- poli and not re-emerge until Churchill once again took control of the destiny of our
LETTERS
young men in the campaigns in Crete and Greece.
On the day that I visited the Buttes New British Military Cemetery, the surrounding bush (for we would call it such in New Zealand) was full of a thick mist. The cemetery however was clear and bathed in sunshine. The spirit of sacrifice and valour completely overtook me. All I could do was to leave my small bunch of flowers and flee the presence that remained.
On the outskirts of the town of Messines is another memorial, to the New Zealan- ders who died in the capture of that place on 16 June 1917. It is a tall and simple tapered monument inscribed 'from the utmost ends of the earth'. Here was brought home to me most powerfully the sense of loss that all the war graves and monuments have.
Lieutenant General Sir Bernard Freyburg, the commander of the second world war New Zealand forces in the Mediterranean, who had won a Victoria Cross and two DSOs in the first war, best represented that feeling in another battle in 1944 at Cassino. The commonwealth and Nei, Zealand forces had failed in frontal attacks on the monastic stronghold incurring great loss of life. The New Zealanders were once again ordered to attack by the British Commander, General Wilson. Freyburg sent a one-word protest: `Passchendaele'.
No, more was heard of that attack.
Mark Skinner
13 Grass Street, Oriental Bay, Wellington, New Zealand
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