BATTLE MEMORIALS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 16 May 1925, Page 15

BATTLE MEMORIALS.

REMARKABLE SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

_ A large majority of the people of New Zealand will never have the opportunity of seeing the war memorials set up in Gallipoli and in France and Belgium fo the memory of those members of the Expeditionary Force who made the supreme sacrifice. It is satisfactory to know, therefore, that, thanks to the foresight of the architect, Mr S. Hurst .Seager, a very complete photographic record of the building of these monuments, the monuments themselves in their completed state, and of events concerned with their construction, is available, and in due course will be shown on the screen in the Dominion.

It is four or five years since the work of construction began, and Mr Seager was careful to photograph the memorial sites Jong before the first foundations of the monuments were laid. Since that time he has continued to compose a pictorial story of the development of the monuments and the country surrounding them. There are 220 slides in all, and these Mr Seager will have with him when he reaches New Zealand in October.

As Mr Seager, left for America !e----cently, the High Commissioner considered it advisable to give New Zealanders in London an opportunity of seeing the slides, and arrangements were made for their presentation on the screen in the Alain Hall of New Zealand House. First of all some 57 slides of Gallipoli Peninsula were shown. A though the monuments and the cemeteries are the principal subjects in this series, the general condition of the Peninsula to-day is made quite clear. To those who fought on this battlefield the pictures will he exceedingly interesting. Those who have only visualised the country will have the satisfaction of correcting their mental impressions. The series relating to Longueval mainly deals with the ceremony of unveiling on October 8, 1922. There are 17 slides. Eleven illustrate the unveiling of the New Zealand tablet in Amiens Cathedral on July 16. 1923. This was after the memorable ceremony at Le Quesnoy. Another series of 35 shows the country about Messines before the, restoration of-the - soil began, the panorama from the site of the Messines Memorial, and the events of the unveiling ceremony by His Majesty the King of the Belgians on August 1, 1924. On the following day, it will be remembered, the Gravenstafel Memorial was unveiled by Sir Janies Allen, and this ceremony, despite the rain that fell, is well illustrated'. LE QUESNOY SERIES.

Finally, there are the 84 very beautiful slides illustrating the Le Quesnoy Memorial. There is a set .showing the picturesque surroundings of the city, a set showing the process of construction of the New Zealand garden, and also the beauty of the garden when completed. The marble panel has a series to itself, and one sees it lying in the Nebrasina Quarry in Italy, then the sculptor’s studio in Paris, one follows its journey from Paris to Le Quesnoy, then up to the fortification walls, and one may see the process- of lowering this 10-ton block -over the precipitous face to the aperture made ready for it in the wall. Then there is the- series illustrating the unveiling ceremony on July 15, 1923, when the whole town marched in procession to the memorial site. Further slides illustrate the French Memorial in the centre of the town, and here it may he recorded for the first time that the French have put the following inscription on their own memorial: “And to the memory of the officers, n.c.o.’s, and men of the New Zealand division who died in the deliverance of this village on November 4, 1918.” A new hell has been set up in the helfrv tower of Le Quesnoy, and. the inscription refers to the part taken by the New Zealanders in the deliverance of the town from the Germans. These are words inscribed round the lip of the hell: ' “in November, 1918, after a. bombardment of 13 days, the Germans, who had occupied Le Quesnoy from August 25, 1914, were chased from this city bv the New Zealanders. “Before abandoning it they put fire to the belfry and the hell was melted. “The bronze was recovered and incorporated in this one, so that the material also may continue the tradition.”