History – Soldiers linked by Kaiwaka connection

Two heroes from our district who knew the same home – a Dr Barnardo Centre in Kaiwaka (now the Apple Basket) – were Charles Edward Sutherland and Keith Reynold Marshall. Charles’ Irish mother named him William Waters Sheehan, then adopted him out to a soldier, Charles Sutherland, and his wife Elsie. When they divorced, they left five-year-old Charles with a soldier friend and never returned to collect him. After a year, the friend contacted authorities and Charles was taken to an industrial school for abandoned children.

Then, in 1902, Mr and Mrs Ross, from Kaiwaka, came to his rescue and took him home as a foster son. Mary Ross was an agent with the Dr Barnardo charity. Charles went to the Kaiwaka School until he was 12 and then attended a training school for two years. At the time, all males had to register for compulsory military training when they turned 14.

By 1914, Charles had joined the Ruahini 17th Regiment National Reserve, Army Corp, in Wellington.

When filling out his military registration, he named Mary Ross, as his next of kin. She was a kind and motherly woman who had shown him love for the first time in his life.

With the war raging in Europe, he embarked for Egypt on the steamship Tofua in November 1915. He wrote to his foster parents and brother Stanley from Turkey, one time telling them a humorous story about shooting at some Turks attempting to get water from a source that his regiment was guarding. He had aimed at their jerry cans, which caused such a noise that they disappeared running for their lives, without water. One year later, during the battle of the Somme, on 16 November 1916, Charles was killed in action, aged 21. He is buried at Rue David Military Cemetery Fleurbaix, France.

The other soldier in our story, Keith Marshall, lived at the Dr Barnardo house in Kaiwaka after his parents, Hugh and Elizabeth Marshall, bought the Ross family home around 1920. Keith’s desire to fly saw him going to Canada to train as a pilot, where he graduated in 1941. He trained with the Royal Canadian Air Force No.1 Wireless School, in Montreal, Quebec; the Royal Canadian Air Force No.1 Bombing and Gunnery School at Jarvis, Ontario; and the Royal Canadian Air Force No. 1 Air Navigation School, in Rivers, Manitoba.

On 20 February 1943, Marshall was aboard one of the 14 aircraft from 295 Squadron when they made a raid on three transformers in north-west France. Keith’s aircraft was one of two brought down by anti-aircraft fire. He was killed, aged 35, and lies in the Saumur Communal Cemetery, France.

Both these young men, who had lived in the same house at different times, experienced the horrors of war – one in World War I and one in World War II – and lie in peace in the same country. Their home community still honours their memory and remembers their service and sacrifice with gratitude.