Four Pacific students attend Somme WWI commemoration events ^Featured

Anna Jane Vea joined three other young people from Samoa, Niue, and the Cook Islands at the Somme centenary commemorations in France last week after winning a WW100 essay competition run by the New Zealand High Commission.

The competition was supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as part of the WW100 First World War centenary programme and was aimed at helping the students remember and deepen their understanding of the contribution their countries made to World War I, and the ongoing impact of this.

While in France, the four Pacific students took part in the dawn service in Longueval, laid a wreath at a service at the Arc de Triomphe, and met His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.

The students visited Beaumont-Hamel, the Thiepval Memorial and Lochnagar Crater and also had a tour of Carrière Wellington in Arras, where New Zealand tunnellers worked in World War I. Wonderful tour of Carrière Wellington in Arras this morning, where NZ tunnellers worked in WW1

Tongan winner Anna Jane Vea described how she has become more grateful having learnt about the New Zealand and Tongan soldiers who served in the First World War.

“I acknowledge that I still reap the fruits of their labour which is evident in the independence my country continues to maintain, and the freedom and access I hold to a good education, prospective career; freedom to choose to have a family of my own and so much more.

Should I ever walk past the Tonga War Memorial in Nuku’alofa, I will walk a little taller, more proud of what they have achieved for my country and what my country has achieved for the world. Their sacrifice does not just mean something to me, but to all of us, and it shall continue to do so in generations to come.”

New Zealanders in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force were joined by approximately 500 Pacific Island soldiers in the First World War. The majority were Cook Islanders and Niueans, 40 per cent of whom were part of the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion in France during 1916-17, while over 300 Cook Islanders served in the Middle East throughout 1917-18.

Men from Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Norfolk Island also served overseas with the New Zealand forces during the First World War.

The Battle of the Somme was the first major battle for New Zealand on the Western Front. Of the 15,000 members of the New Zealand Division who were involved in the battle, approximately one in seven was killed and about four in every 10 were wounded.

The Somme commemoration was also an opportunity to remember and reflect on the fact that there are more New Zealand soldiers buried in French soil than in any other country.