History – Christmas in wartime

As the festive season approaches, 100 years since WWI began, I think about of all the young men (and women) who went overseas to fight for their country never returning for Christmas with their families. When war broke out, Alf Moffatt, of Wharehine, was typical of the other Territorials who went to Awanui to guard the wireless station there. At the age of 20, he volunteered for the Expeditionary Force and entered Trentham with the 11th Reinforcements on 14 December 1915. He was ill when that draft left, but embarked a month later with the 12th reinforcements on the troop ship Ulimaroa. This draft was the last of the New Zealand infantry sent via the Suez Canal and Egypt. They reached the Canal Zone on 9 June 1916. Alf now had pneumonia so was admitted to the No 2 Australian Hospital, at Tel El Kebir. Once recovered he travelled via France to Sling Camp in England where he was posted to the 1st Canterbury Company.

His letters and postcards home were cheerful and chatty even though he was often ill. One letter, written in hospital on 19 December 1916, said that he’d had his tonsils removed at Codford Hospital the week before but hoped to be out before Christmas. He commented that it had been very, very cold “pretty trying for Colonials and everyone complains of coughs and colds and a lot are going back to New Zealand with chest complaints. I can’t see myself going to France this winter. They are getting up concerts in the hospital for the Christmas season, the first one came off last night and was very successful.”

Alf sent home the December 13 issue of Chronicles of the NZEF (Price 6d, Troops 3d, France 4d) and wrote at the top of the first page … ‘Dear Grace, just left hospital again, so am having Xmas in camp. Going on leave for New Year and expect to get furlough later, not doing any drill at present. Hope you are all well as I am at present, Alf.”

The magazine’s editor wrote: “Here we are – our third Christmas spent across the seas; and what was it they said when we joined up in August ’14? Ah, yes, I remember. “How foolish you are to go. Germany will be finished before you get there. She cannot exist longer than Christmas.”

… Christmas 1916 is almost with us and the men whose third it is from home grow fewer and fewer. Those who are left fight on still in the same old way, though they have grown perhaps a trifle more serious and regard war more as a deadly business than a pastime.”

Alf spent his leave in London but later spent time in a convalescent hospital with flu and bronchitis. In June 1917, he left Folkestone for France and was posted to the 14th Otago Infantry. In his last letter to Grace, dated 27 August, he wrote … “we never see anything to shoot here except rats & cats & Fritz’s aeroplanes, & they’re no good to eat, even if we could hit ‘em.” Enclosed in the letter was a poppy from No-Man’s Land. As it turned out, 1916 was Alf’s last Christmas. On 3 October 1917, Private Alfred Moffatt, aged 22, was killed at Passchendaele.Their Name Liveth Forever More