BATTLE OF RANGIRIRI.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 20 November 1926, Page 11

BATTLE OF RANGIRIRI.

BRITISH FORCES' ONE REVERSE. STORMING THE REDOUBT. On this day sixty-three years ago the British forces under General Cameron suffered their only serious reverse in the Waikato War. Nearly a thousand British troops, including a Royal Kavy detachment, and some field artillery, attacked the Maori entrenchments at Rangiriri on November 20, 1863. The present motor road goes through the centre of the Kingite works, on the crown of the hill just before Rangiriri township is entered from the north. The trenches, with a strong redoubt in the centre, extended from the Waikato River on the west to the small Lake Ropuwera—now a wild fowl sanctuary — on the east. The long trench riverwards . on the west is still well preserved. The Imperial soldiers carried the outer works at the point of the bayonet, and then the Maoris crowded into the redoubt. All the defences were earth works —no palisading was set up. The redoubt presented a clay face of seventeen or eighteen feet in height from the bottom of the wide ditch, and this scarp resisted all the efforts of the' attackers. General Cameron repeatedly I launched storming parties against this Maori citadel, a sheer waste of brave men's lives. The British casualties numbered 128 before approaching darkness compelled the general to order a cessation of the attacks. Six officers and forty-one men were killed or died of wounds. Next morning 183 Maoris surrendered; the rest of the garrison did not wait to be captured. In fatal casualties the' defenders suffered about as severely as the attackers. Probably many of them would have continued the but their ammunition was exhausted. The bodies of the officers killed were brought to Auckland for burial, but most of the men who fell in the battle were i buried in the cemetery on the riverj bank in Rangiriri township. This burial' place has lately been put in beautiful order by the War Graves Section of the i Department of Internal Affairs, which \ has spent nearly £1000 in attending to the historic ground. l In a few weeks' time it is intended there will be a gathering there of Maori ; War veterans from all parts of the j Auckland district, when the Hon. R. I Bollard, representing the Government, | will be present to conduct an opening ' ceremony at the renovated graveyard. | ' I