Honoring the Soldiers of the Canterbury Regiment.

Sergeant Philip Brazier is a Territorial Army soldier from the Nottingham-based 350 Field Squadron (Robin Hood) Royal Engineers (V).  350 Fd Sqn is a British Territorial Army unit that supports the RAF Harrier force, as well as assisting Regular Army Engineer units on deployment.  He currently resides in NZ and is employed as a teacher Mount Somers Springburn School in Methven, Canterbury and since arriving in 2008 has been on attachment to the 2nd Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast Battalion Group (2 CANT NMWC) as a Field Engineer in the Engineer Troop based out of Burnham Camp. 

Philip is an avid military historian and has followed the NZ Brigades that fought in the WW1 with a focus on the Canterbury Regiment. 

He returned to the UK in April 2010 to marry his fiancée and to visit battlefields and sites that the NZ Rifle brigades had fought over, and as a personal pilgrimage on behalf of descendants of several families whose ancestors remain on foreign soil. 

The unit supported this endeavor and asked that he represent the unit by the wearing of the 2 CANT NMWC dress embellishments at formal occasions and record the visit so others may learn from the experience.

With the NZ Minister of Defence, Hon Wayne Mapp and the Defence Attache, Brig Phil Gibbons at Tyne Cot (AW-10-0831-15).

This is Philips story

During June, I visited a number of sites linked to the Canterbury Regiment’s service in France and Flanders in World War One.  Prior to leaving, I had approached the Headquarters of 2CANTNMWC Bn Gp; the Canterbury Regiment Association and BJ Clarke at Papanui RSA to seek permission to do so as an official representative of the unit and 3rd RNZE Branch of the Sappers Association.
It was an honour to represent 2CANTNMWC Battalion Group during a tour to Belgium in early in the month and then later to France.  Personal meaning was added to the visit as I had been asked to lay poppy crosses at the graves of soldiers with relatives still living in the Ashburton district.

The early part of the visit was blessed with good weather – quite unlike the grainy images of winter Flanders mud that dominate the collective memory of the Western Front.  The Belgian town of Ypres/Ieper was the centre of the ‘The Salient’ of allied territory that jutted out into the German lines and could therefore be bombarded from three directions.  Three major offensives centered on the Salient and well-maintained Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries are a common sight.

Ever since its completion in 1927, the Menin Gate memorial has dominated the eastern end of the city centre of Ypres and 54,900 names of the missing carved into its walls are a sobering record of sacrifice that the Belgians have not forgotten.  I attended the nightly Last Post Ceremony and willingly accepted an invite to read the ‘Ode to the Fallen’ during the service.

The following day, my wife and I had arranged a tour with Franky Bostyn and Freddy DeClerk from the 1917 Memorial Museum in Zonnebeke, near Passchendaele.  ‘High’ ground has a different meaning to New Zealanders and Cantabrians in particular, and yet the matter of a few meters height meant so many losses for New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa and Britain in 1917.

A general tour of the ground covered by the October 1917 offensive led to Berlin Wood and Gravenstafel spur, where one of the New Zealand memorials looks back towards Ypres and the ground covered during the successful attack by the NZ Division on 4th October.

The disastrous attack of 12th October literally ‘bogged down’ in shell-torn quagmire that had once been a small stream called the Ravebeek  - only some 400 yards from where the Canterbury Battalion had finished its advance on 4th October.  The willow-lined stream of today is a massive contrast to what must have confronted the troops that morning.
Following that, the battalion had spent the winter of 1917-18 in Polygon Wood, to the south of Passchendaele and we were taken there next.  The Buttes cemetery in Polygon Wood is on the site of an old Belgian army rifle range – hence its name.  Facing an Australian memorial is a New Zealand memorial to the missing.

A short distance from there is a relatively new memorial to the action where Sgt H.J. Nicholas (then a Private) won a Victoria Cross while attacking the Polderhoek Chataux on 3rd December 1917.
While the losses suffered during the Passchendaele attacks in October 1917 are well known and were marked by official NZ Government visits in 2007, the attack on Messines Ridge in Belgium in June of that year seems to receive less coverage.

Set against the Passchendaele disaster, the success achieved at Messines Ridge in June of 1917 was considerable.  On 7th June 1917, 300 tons of high explosive in 19 underground mines was detonated, destroying much of the German front line.  Following the detonations, an infantry attack achieved great success and cleared the ridge, although it was bitterly contested by German counter-attacks in the days that followed.  Another New Zealand memorial sits on top of the ridge, looking back at the area from which the NZ Division attacked.  Just below the memorial are two German bunkers.  It requires little imagination to consider the scene as kiwi soldiers moved as fast as they could to get to this point before the dreaded patter of machine guns raked the ground over which they advanced.  Close by is the Messines Ridge British Cemetery where there are over 1000 graves and a New Zealand memorial to 840 missing kiwis.

Our final visit was to Tyne Cot Cemetery to lay a wreath at the New Zealand Memorial to the missing.  Rather than include kiwi missing on the Menin Gate memorial, the NZ government decided in 1921 that they should be recorded as close as possible to where they fought – hence the memorials at Gravenstafel, Polygon Wood, Messines as well as Tyne Cot.

As the rain fell, we joined the NZ Minister of Defence, Hon Wayne Mapp, the NZ Ambassador to Belgium and the Defence Attache in London, Brigadier Phil Gibbons,  to lay wreaths at the memorial.  Four of the soldiers that I had been asked to commemorate with a poppy cross are recorded at Tyne Cot, but only one has a grave.  It would be easy to just walk past the rows of names carved into Portland limestone but, having met the nieces and grandchildren of these men, their memory takes on a far greater importance.

Later in June, I returned to Belgium and France with two London-based kiwis to visit the grave of Sergeant Henry James Nicholas who as a Private in the 12th (Nelson) Company, 1st Battalion Canterbury Regiment’s won the Regiments first Victoria Cross, he was also awarded the Military Medal for a separate action.  As the NZ Rifle Brigade prepared to launch its famous attack on the walled town of Le Quesnoy, patrols from the the 1st Battalion Canterbury Regiment were defending bridges at Beaudignies, to the southwest.  Sergeant Nicholas was killed during a skirmish ½ km from one of the bridges and his body lies with 18 others in the churchyard at the village of Vertignuel.  There is debate on who fired the artillery fire that killed Sgt Nicholas and others on the bridge, at the time it was thought to be friendly fire and as a result his death had such a detrimental effect on his battalion that it had to be taken out of the line.

While Sergeant Nicholas VC statue is visible for all in Christchurch NZ, it is not often that a serving member of the Canterbury Regiment gets to visit his grave and pay respects on behalf of the unit, so to lay a wreath on a glorious summer’s morning was a very special moment for me.

Thanks to 2 CANT NMWC Bn Gp; Franky Bostyn and Freddy DeClerk from the Passchendaele 1917 Museum; the Canterbury Regiment Association; BJ Clark, Papanui RSA and Chris Murphy, Principal of Mt Somers Springburn School for allowing me a term’s leave to get married and undertake this tour.  Finally, very many thanks to my wife Catherine for willingly participating in an ‘alternative’ honeymoon.

Sgt PW Brazier, Engineer Troop, Spt Coy, 2CANTNMWC BN Gp

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