GALLIPOLI, Turkey
Hundreds of New Zealanders gathered Saturday in Turkey’s Canakkale province to pay tribute to their ancestors who fought and died during the First World War in Gallipoli.
Under the sweltering heat, around 500 people were at the Chunuk Bair Memorial -- located on a hill that, in August 1915, was one of the Allied forces’ main objectives and where many New Zealanders lost their lives.
One of the visitors was John Howells, 70, from Sidney, Australia who said his great uncle died fighting against Turkish troops in the 1915 campaign.
Howells, who works as a tour guide after serving 30 years in the Australian military, came to Gallipoli for the first time in 2002 to find his great uncle Lance Corporal Maxwell Horwitz of the 15th Battalion Australian Imperial Force, whose name is now written on memorial at Lone Pine in Canakkale.
“We had trouble to find him because he had an Ukrainian name and we knew it would have been changed cause you got arrested if you had German sounding name,” Howells said, so it was changed to “Howitz” instead.
“When we finally found the name it was very moving,” he added.
This year marks 100th anniversary of the conflict in the Dardanelles Strait, which became a turning point for Turks fighting against the invading Allies during WWI.
More than 43,000 Australians and New Zealanders had applied to attend this April’s main annual commemorations but just 10,000 places were available.
As a result, Turkey held additional ceremonies to commemorate 1915’s Gelibolu (Gallipoli) fighting in Canakkale, scene of the pivotal WWI conflict.
Speaking to the audience at Chunuk Bair Memorial, New Zealand’s Governor-General Jerry Mateparae said that they were in Gallipoli to “remember the stand taken by our countrymen in the Battle of Chunuk Bair 100 years ago”.
“Today, we also acknowledge the bravery of the Ottoman forces who suffered terrible losses here,” he said.
“We honor the tens of thousands of men who, following Mustafa Kemal’s [The founder leader of Turkish Republic] ‘I am not ordering you to fight, I am ordering you to die’ command, lost their lives throughout the Gallipoli campaign, in the defense of the Ottoman Empire.”
The ceremony ended with the haka dance, a traditional ancestral war cry from New Zealand’s native’s Maori people.
Tens of thousands of Turkish nationals and soldiers died in the eight-month campaign, along with tens of thousands of Europeans, plus between 7,000 - 8,000 Australians and nearly 3,000 New Zealanders.
