MAORI ATTACK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21596, 14 September 1933, Page 6

MAORI ATTACK

iPTJKEKOHE;.} EAST CHTJECH

SETTLERS' GREAT DEFENCE

70TH 7 ANNIVERSARY TO-DAY

The 70th anniversary of the attack bn the Pukekohe East Church at an early stage of the Waikato War falls to-day. Although not on a large scale, the engagement has always attracted a good deal of attention in view of the fact that it was the only occasion during the campaign on which untrained soldier settlers, entirely unsupported by regular troops, were obliged to defend themselves against an overwhelming number of assailants and bear for hours the heat and burden of the day before aid reached them.

Inside a stockade, which had not been completed, 17 men met the repeated assaults of some 300 natives until a party of the 70th Regiment, and later a detachment of the Ist fWaikato Militia, arrived to drive off ithe attacking rebels. As a means of defence the church had been surrounded by a low breastwork of horizontal logs, outside of which a ditch was dug later. The building was 30ft. by 15ft. and the surrounding enclosure 53ft. by 35ft. Toward the end of August, 1863. two or three weeks before the attack, an Imperial Army officer arrived and directed the garrison to split heavy slabs and erect them to increase the height of the defences. This work was only partially finished by the time the attack was made, but one good work had been done, the erection of a flanking angle -at the south-east corner, thus enabling the garrison's rifles to enfilade the southern and eastern sides of the stockade. It is believed that 40 of the Maoris were killed in the engagement and 75 others wounded, while of the soldiery three were killed and eight wounded, although none of the men inside the stockade was struck. In 1929 the then Governor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson, unveiled a memorial tablet to the garrison of the little building, which yet stands in good repair, still showing the bullet scars of 70 years ago. At the same time, His Excellency unveiled a monument marking the site- where a number of the natives who fell during the assault lie buried.

There is still living in Epsom a yeteran who took a prominent part in the defence of the little redoubt. He is Captain Joseph Corbett Scost, who, although in his 96th year, retains vivid memories of the attack on the church.