PASSCHENDALE RIDGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1924, Page 13

PASSCHENDALE RIDGE.

NEW ZEALAND MEMORIAL. TRAGIC DAYS RECALLED. TASK BEYOND HUMAN POWER. London, August 7. Whereas the New Zealand Division loet 3700 casualties in the Battle of Messines, which was a brilliant success the losses during the attack at Gravenstafel and the eight days that followed were 6078, and the action ended in tiagic failure. In the attack on Belle* vue the New Zealanders were called upon to perform an impossible task and in their attempt they shed their blood like water. The storming of Mes-e-lnes was carried out under the mbef favourable conditions, and after th< most perfect preparation. The storming of Passehendaele Ridge was the greatest tragedy of the New Zealand Division in Flanders. 'lt was undertaken without preparation against uncut wire and by worn-out troops amid a wilderness of mud and in the drenching October rains.

Once success had been *adneved in the Battle of Broodseinde on October 4> Gravenstafel crossroads became a dump to which the carrying parties made their desperate journeys through the awful quagmires. Just below the crossroads on the Wieltje Road there are concrete shelters still intact. There are pill-boxes scattered freely over the countryside; there is a wooden crose over a German soldier’s grave at the crossroads. There is little else to remind. one of the horrors of seven years ago. The Haneheek is an orderly stream. Van Meulen, Docky Farm. Waterloo Farm, Fleet Cottage, Riverside and Aviatik Farm are all groups of red-roofed buildings. Men and women come and go, who, though they transformed the wilderness, have little knowledge of the deep sacredness in which this area of Belgium is held by many thousands of British and New Zealand people whose loved ones made here tlie last, great sacrifice. The surroundings here are not beautiful like those at Messines. but New Zealand plants and shrubs and English trees set in the small garden about the monument have taken on vigorous growth and will help to make an arresting picture amid otherwise uninteresting landscape. But no area of land in Flanders can carry with it so many grim memories to the New Zealand soldier who struggled against over whelming odds during those days in October, 1917. At the highest point visible the new Passchendaele, fresh from the builders’ hands, may be seen, uninteresting, insignificant, but it bears a name which will be known to the generations in the centuries to come. Sir James Allen, who unveiled the memorial lust week, recalled the strenuous days ef 1917. As rain fell on those who had gathered round the monument we heard again the grim story of the hardships, the gallantry, the desperate deeds against overwhelming odds, the noble self-sacrifice in an attempt t'o obey an order which was beyond human accomplish men t. ■Sir Alexander Godley and the Hon James Craigie also spoke, and then the Burgomaster of Passchendaele paid his tribute to the glorious dead. “In the name of the village of Passchendaele-, ** lv- said, “I accept gratefully, on the ground of Gravenstafel, where British weapons gained so much fame, to hold in honour the memorial that now will proclaim for centuries, to our population, to the passer-by, and later to posterity, the high soul and mind of the soldiers of King George V. w’he fought here.

“Passchendaele, Gravenstafel—two names unknown before 1914. Four years’ gigantic struggles on this western point of the salient of Ypres made the British legions who excelled themselves here write these names with letters of blood, but with rays of , pur* glory. Now ia the name of our little village known all around the world and for long years it will be pronounced in the British Empire as the place where,, from all its large countries and Dominions, came proud, stout, and brave champions to combat for the freedom of the world. Passchendaele will for ever remember the valiants fallen here, and, recollect upon th-2 ground of Gravenstafel, that one of the longeet and also most valiant deeds of the British armies was acted in this place. Glory and honour on your fionr who died here the dearth of heroes.”