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More than 100 ex-servicemen, officials and local residents gathered at the Warkworth war memorial on Church Hill for a service to commemorate the Armistice Day centenary on November 11.
Warkworth RSA president John Stephen led the proceedings and read an account of the liberation of the French town of Le Quesnoy by Kiwi soldiers after it had been in German occupation for almost four years.
Bishop John Bluck also spoke, and reflected on the huge losses sustained locally – 245 men went to fight, only 65 returned – and by New Zealand as a whole, which lost more lives proportionately than any other country in the then-British Empire.
“There were only one million of us here then,” he said. “Nearly 18,000 died and 45,000 were injured, and who knows how many more were damaged. Those losses changed us all forever.
“We mourn those losses, of course, as we do every November 11 and Armistice Day. But we also remember the jubilation when news that the war was ended reached New Zealand.
“There was cheering, singing, tooting, piping, rattling in what the Evening Post in Wellington called a ‘roaring chorus of gladsome sounds’.”
He said that while the deeply held dream of peace on earth had failed to come to pass, people needed to pray that our children would never have to fight as their forebears had to.
Wreaths were then laid by service and local government representatives and, following the service, a special lunch was held at the RSA.
Meanwhile, a large crowd including members of the Patriots Defence Force Motorcycle Club gathered at the memorial in Matakana for a service conducted by Reverend Bryan Taylor. After the two minute silence, 25 white doves were released by school students from Matakana and Mahurangi College.
