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Tyne Cot Cemetery, Passchendaele
The New Zealanders at Mesines and Passchendaele
The battles of Messines and Passchendaele are two of the most iconic moments in New Zealand history. Messines was a great victory - but at no small cost. Four months later, just the other side of Ypres, Passchendaele became the country's most tragic day. It remains so.
In a few short hours, in driving rain, strong cold winds and deep mud, left vulnerable by an ineffective artillery barrage and blocked by 13-metres of barbed wire, New Zealand suffered a casualty toll of more than 60% of those who took part in the attack - a total of 3,296 casualties of whom 1,190 died. Even with over 3,000 extra men brought in from support battalions it took more than two days to clear the New Zealand wounded from the battlefield as the war went on.
Flanders 1917 touched virtually every family the length and breadth of a land with a population of just over one million and which sent 10% of that population to war. It left a legacy that exists to this day.
This site offers a brief outline of Flanders in 1917 - of Messines and Passchendaele, their histories and their people; of the New Zealanders, the soldiers, the four New Zealand related VCs in Flanders; and of the projects and commemorative events that began at Messines on Thursday June 7 - the day, 90 years ago, that the New Zealand Division captured the town. -
W. B. Rhodes-Moorhouse
William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, born in England but of Maori New Zealand descent, was the first airman to be awarded the Victoria Cross...
Will Rhodes-Moorhouse was the eldest son of Edward Moorhouse and Mary Ann, the part Maori daughter of William Barnard Rhodes, an early settler in New Zealand. Will's parents settled in England in 1884 and he was brought up mainly in Northamptonshire with a brother and two sisters. The family was rich, comfortable and happy living off the considerable fortune in property and rents from New Zealand. Will was a mischievous child and quite a handful for the nursery maids. He had auburn hair, green eyes and was not very tall but very well built.
A bookplate depicts theRhodes-Moorhouse attack onthe Kortrijk rail junctionHis father tried to interest him in horses and hunting but he hated riding. As a small boy Will became mad about machines of all kinds, particularly steam engines and locomotive. He was a natural mechanic but never shone at school; he left Harrow (...)
