FROM POKENO TO FRANCE
He endured months in the trenches of the feared Ypres Salient in the Fields of Flanders, fought there in one of the most successful New Zealand actions of the war, then was amongst the troops brought in to help hold the line after the disastrous losses of Passchendaele. From there he and his fellow Kiwi soldiers were hurriedly thrown into action on the tired, old battlefield of the Somme, to stop the last great German attack of the war. It was here he took part in a desperate bayonet charge uphill in the dying light of a wintery day against the might of the German army, stopping them in their tracks and helping turn the tide of the war.
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Bert Gadd served for 21 months as a private in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, almost half of the 53 months the entire war lasted. He turned 21 while on active service at the front – he notes it briefly in his field diary; it was pay day, his celebration extended to having a swim with his fellow soldiers in a canal behind the lines. Ultimately, he was shot and killed on a cold dawn in March 1918 after a night helping to hold the line in a pitched fight to repel yet another German attack. His commander, firing alongside Bert, later told the family “we were all fighting for all we were worth” when Bert fell. He was hastily buried in a shell hole by his comrades with five others killed during the night, and the Auckland Battalion, in which he had served, marched on to victory. Within a few months, once the battles had moved on, his body was disinterred and buried in one of the war graveyards which dot France, though the gravestone which now marks his resting place can only say he is believed to lie there.
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This site is primarily to provide wider access to Bert’s original diary entries and letters, a precious and historically valuable record of his life as a solider in World War I and a trove of family commentary for genealogists. But the first few chapters are devoted to pulling together elements from his diaries and letters, his service records, official Regimental histories and the work of established historians to provide an overview of where he was fighting, what was happening in the wider war effort around him and why he and his fellow Kiwi soldiers were being sent into battle.
Enlistment
The war started for Bert on 24 July 1916 when he enlisted. He was aged 20, and signed up less than two months after his birthday on 4 June – 20 was the statutory age at which men were accepted into the New Zealand army at the time. He was a volunteer, conscription was not introduced in New Zealand until a few weeks later under the Military Service Act of August 1916 and the first draft of conscripts was not called until November that year. His Military Records include the Attestation which he filled in when signing up and was witnessed by his mum Annie who had gone with him to the recruitment office. It shows he was at the time a member of the 16th Waikato Territorials – the territorial force had been created in 1911 by the Government specifically to ready a pool of men in expectation of the outbreak of a European war. Bert had joined the territorials in Tuakau, south of Auckland. Previously, as a teenager when the family was living in Oratia, Auckland, he and a neighbour, Willie Shaw, had also been in the Senior Cadets. He mentions this in a letter home and later finds out Willie is serving in the same Battalion at the front.
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Bert was born in Blackheath, Birmingham, in 1896 and came to New Zealand when the family emigrated when he was seven years old in 1902. (They left England in 1902 and arrived in January 1903). The family moved around Auckland initially as Bert’s father, Herbert Senior, tried a succession of money making schemes, none of which he ever stuck to. The family lived at various times on the North Shore, on a farm in Oratia, and in central city fringe suburbs, and Bert attended several schools, leaving when he was around 15. He then worked with his father who at that stage was back to the business he knew best and had carried out in the UK, running a small grocery store, this time in Karangahape Rd. In 1914, as war broke out in Europe, the family moved out to rural Pokeno and Herbert Snr tried farming once more.
The Gadd family in 1905 – Bert, aged around 9, is second from left in the front, his father's hand resting on his shoulder.
By the time he turned 20 Bert was a man of slight build, standing 162cm (or 5 feet 5 inches in old money) and weighing roughly 57kg, with fair hair and grey eyes. He was level headed, intelligent and no stranger to hard work. He was living with the family in Pokeno and working at the United Timber Company in nearby Mercer as a labouring timber worker when he signed up to join the army.
He helped on the farm, could ride a horse, was musical (his younger sister Gladys would decades later recall how he would play his accordion on the stairs to the wash house in Pokeno every night), used to handling guns and was already a good shot - scoring 28 out of 30 in his first test at the firing range in military camp.
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After enlisting, he boarded a troop train from Hamilton the very next day, on 25 July. He arrived in Wellington on 26 July and immediately began training in the local military camps - he was first at Trentham and then, after an outbreak of flu and measles there, he was shifted to Featherston in the Wairarapa.
Bert enjoyed the company of the other men, learnt how to use the army issued rifle, got his first taste at bayonet practice, and quickly took advantage of the new found freedom from home – he took up smoking, telling his mum “you will be shocked to hear that I have bought a pipe”.[iii] He also encountered the hard slog of army life, commenting:
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“I am one of Bill Massey’s navvy’s ... I have been digging trenches today with a pick and shovel.” [Massey was Prime Minister at the time.]
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“We have physical exercises daily and a parade every evening. They gradually increase the training till everyone is as hard as nails.”
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On 15 November he shipped out for England, onboard the Maunganui, which was designated His Majesty’s New Zealand Troopship 68, officially beginning ‘active service.’ For each year on active service a soldier was entitled to have a blue stripe sewn onto their sleeve – a year later, on 19 November 1917, Bert records in his diary going to the regimental tailor to have his blue stripe sewn on.
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After Gallipoli the NZ forces had gone to Egypt to recuperate and the majority were then sent to France in 1916. Their first major engagement was the First Battle of the Somme, before they were moved further north to Belgium. Bert was therefore bound for the Western Front and the Fields of Flanders.
He was a private, being sent out as part of the 19th Reinforcements of the NZ Expeditionary Force. The first NZ troops who shipped out and eventually landed in Gallipoli were known as the Main Body and all troops who joined the NZEF from then on were Reinforcements. Incidentally, going out with him in the same Reinforcements was Gordon Coates, MP, who would later become Bert’s commanding officer. The two would form a bond during some of the toughest fighting the Kiwis would see in the war.
The Maunganui sailed in convoy with the Tahiti, designated HMNZT 69, with the 19th Reinforcements split between the two ships, and each also carrying new personnel for an assortment of other units such as a specialist signalling section for the previous group of reinforcements, the 18ths; chaplains; medical corps and, rather prosaically, the Army Pay Department.
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All the men going out as part of the 19th had built a feeling of comradeship, something the army specifically tried to encourage. They had their own hat badge issued featuring the number XIX and their own motto, "kia tupato", which they translated as "beware" or "be vigilant". But most of all, they called themselves the Rainy 19th. Bert mentions this self-deprecating sobriquet in a letter home to friend Philip Hitchen, written while aboard the Maunganui.
Each troopship had their own newspaper, printed and published at sea, partly as a souvenir for the soldiers, partly to help foster their espirit de corp. The 19th’s, onboard the Manganui, was the Kia Tupato, named after their unit motto. The rump of the 19th on the Tahiti had their own version called The Oilsheet.
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An opening salvo from the Tahiti’s Oilsheet gives a flavour of the 19th’s humour: “The history of one reinforcement differs as a rule but little from that of another. The Nineteenths, however, have been an exception, for from the first we have been as a race apart, marked out by Fate and the rainy God Pluvius for exceptional treatment. Our military career commenced on Tuesday, July 25th, when the first draft of recruits entered Camp, bringing with them that rainy weather which dogged our footsteps during the whole of our training in New Zealand.”
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And the Kia Tupato newspaper continues in the same vein, noting as the 19th were lined up being inspected shortly before embarkation: “We were subjected to the customary inspection by the Governor, told we were jolly good fellows (which we knew), and finally the Chief of Staff had his word or two to say. During the course of this address occurred that marvelous natural phenomenon – the Nineteenth’s Waterspout. It was quite evident that in some mysterious way or other we had grievously offended the mighty Rain-god, and that he had chosen this occasion – when we were in full war array – for his crowning act of vengeance.”
Bert had his photo taken in Wellington before he shipped out. We have two separate photos of Bert in full uniform taken at different times and can identify this as the photo dating to Wellington because of the collar badges of the 19th.
After leaving Wellington, the troopships steamed across the Tasman and along the south coast of Australia, calling in at the small port of Albany, south of Perth on 24 November. They then steamed on to South Africa, arriving at Capetown, on 10 December. Bert comments that he had a magnificent view of Table Mountain coming into harbour. They stayed there through Christmas because of concerns over German submarine movements. The ships left South Africa on 27 December, sailing up the Atlantic coast of Africa. They arrived off St Helena Island on 3 January 1917, but did not dock, then departed the next day, calling in at Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, on 10 January and left there on 14 January, not stopping again till England.
During the trip Bert was introduced to Morse code and semaphore, the basics of signalling, which were to later become so important to him – perhaps the presence of the 18ths’ signalers lead to a greater focus on signals training on the Maunganui.
Bert also began to get used to the monotonous routine which underlies much of military life: fatigues and guard duty. And he became familiar with the many diversions to stave off the boredom:
“This afternoon I am on guard duty; supposed to be looking after the officers’ quarters and to see that no one ‘rooks’ anything, but I am taking the opportunity to write this letter.”
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“The great card game here is five hundred and the mania now on is the game of draughts and someone is always arranging draught and chess tournaments.”
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Just as in camp, he also enjoyed the camaraderie of the ship. The troops held a celebration of the crossing of the equator, with their own Father Neptune – played by none other than Captain Gordon Coates. Bert recounts this in a letter:
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“Crossing the line was great sport and we kept up the custom of the Father Neptune business, an article about which is in the Kia Tupato ... the victims who were introduced to the barber and the hose were all officers ... so the men began to look after some similar idea of amusement so they hit upon the idea of ducking everyone in the bath. Sergeants, sergeant majors and everyone they could lay their hands on were heaved into a bath of salt water, clothes and all. Our cabin (No. 40) put up a fight and you will see a reference to it in the Kia Tupato.”
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He posted a copy of Kia Tupato home, which, he tells his brother Frank: “I want you to keep, as I would value it in later years.”
Bert's attestation record from his enlistment.
