Times of war recounted

Otago Daily Times

01-05-2025

Hundreds were gathered around Clutha District War Memorial & Community Centre, Te Pō Mata-Au by 5.30am, Friday April 25, for Anzac Day.
Heralded by a flashing police car at 6.45am, the Balclutha pipe band led the parade of emergency services, armed forces delegations, school groups, community organisations, families and individuals — about 500m long — through the dark to the town's 102-year-old cenotaph.
Dawn rose white and misty as master of ceremonies and military historian Lieutenant-colonel Kevin Baff (Retd) led the gathered community through a service punctuated by haka, a brass band, speeches, wreath-laying and silent remembrance.
"May they rest proudly in the knowledge of their great achievement and may we prove worthy of their great sacrifice," RSA representative, Captain Martin Ford (Retd) said.
The following 10am service in Kaitangata also featured Lt-col Baff, who described some of his own wartime experiences in Afghanistan by way of reminding the gathering of about 100 local people there are New Zealanders on active duty at the present time.
Lt-col Baff's new book They Served contains six years' research on Clutha District war monuments, and brought up the Anzac story of Balclutha soldier James Kiernan, whose name has been misinscibed as "J. A. Kernahan" on Balclutha cenotaph for 103 years.
"None of my sources showed up a J. A. Kernahan with any Balclutha connections, but there was a J. A. Kiernan whose family moved here when he was a boy and he played rugby for the high school and the town," Lt-col Baff said.
"He trained as a telegraph lineman for Invercargill and was no doubt sought out by the military, who needed men with that technological skill set as they went to war."
Sapper Kiernan survived Gallipoli to arrive in France as Commonwealth forces were preparing for the most infamous "big push" of World War 1, the Somme offensive.
Clutha Anzacs were among millions of troops who soon learned the big, sudden campaign of assault and capture of enemy positions kicked off an unstoppable seesaw of counter-attack and recapture.
Spr Kiernan and his unit had captured, lost, and successfully recaptured one such objective.
In the bombardment preceding another German counter attack, the 26-year-old Balclutha rugby boy disappeared, killed in the early stages of a battle of attrition that was to last for months.
His body was never identified but his name is recorded at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, France, and Lt-col Baff said remedial ideas for Spr Kiernan and hundreds of others incorrectly recorded on the district's monuments were being discussed.
Anzac Day services were also held at Benhar, Clinton, Dunrobin, Heriot, Kaitangata, Kaka Point, Lawrence, Milton, Lovells Flat, Owaka, Katea, Tuapeka Mouth, Taieri Mouth, Tapanui, and Warepa.