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DAD AND WWI HORSES

 

When World War One first started and Great Britain called

on allied nations to send over volunteers,

my father put his hand up and served for four long years.

He went to serve for King and Country and the freedom we enjoy,

something as I get older I appreciate more and more.

 

Dad was deadly with a rifle and lightening with a gun,

which probably helped to save him in the may battles lost and won.

He had a enormous admiration for the horses that pulled those heavy guns,

as they battled through the desert beneath that burning sun.

They had very little water and their food was rationed and light,

although it was scorching in the day time, it was freezing cold at night.

 

The horses pulling the ambulance went right into the battle lines,

to rescue the wounded and try to get them help in time.

Those horses carrying the mounted soldiers' hearts seemed rather large,

the way they carried those brave soldiers straight into ta bayonet charge.

 

With no breathing apparatus or protection for their eyes,

the horses would have gone through living hell when the mustard gas was on the rise.

The conditions those horses met were awful to extreme,

when snow and ice, mud and slush, desert heat and places most unclean.

 

After four years of death and destruction the war finally came to end,

so they put on a race meeting to entertain the men.

They picked the best of the allied horses, when the racing had finished those mighty Kiwi horses had won seven races out of ten.

 

This verse does not have a happy ending as I see no glory in a war.

I believe there are only ever losers as those brave horses surely were.

For ten thousand of our finest horses helped Great Britain win the war.

Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety six are not buried on our shores,

for when the fighting finished they brought home but a very , very,

miserly four.

 

 

Written by poet Mike Boyd for our Birch Hill Station WWI event and his booklet complete with a great selection of WWI  B and W photos is titled - DAD AND WWI HORSES.

His dad Charles  Philip Boyd served in the Great War and was lucky enough to make it back home to NZ.

The booklet can be purchased from Mike via his email at  - mikeboydtui@gmail.com

The  Millton  family  at  Birch  Hill    1874  -  to date . . .

 

More on the histroy of the Birch Hill Station and its people, kindly provided by Gerard Morris M.A (Dist.)

PHOTO GALLERY

 

A series of horse related photos from the first world war.

Please click on the picture to see these photos.

Recommended Reading and Viewing

 

References to books, websites and other sources of information about Horses in WW1

Old War Horse Hospital - The Brooke Hospital for Animals

understand why the horses had to be shot or sold and how Mrs Brooke brought 5000 horses in 3 years to be able to  let them die in dignity...

Ministry of Culture and Heritage proposed "listing' for Birch Hill monument.

 

The Birch Hill Station Cemetery was originally created in 1937 as a private cemetery for those associated with Birch Hill Station sheep run, and incorporates a key monument that is rare in memorialising not only soldiers from the station but also horses that served in the First World War.  It serves to remind New Zealanders of the strategic role played by horses in the war, and of the strong bonds created between soldiers and their horses, who became 'part of the soldier's very life'.

 

The Birch Hill Station Cemetery at 130 Garry River Road, Glentui, has been nominated for entry onto the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero (‘the List’).  Continued under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014, the List is maintained by Heritage New Zealand (formerly the New Zealand Historic Places Trust).  The List identifies New Zealand's significant and valued historical and cultural heritage places.  

 

Research has been undertaken and a draft report has been written, and the proposal for entering the Birch Hill Station Cemetery on the List will be open for submissions from 22 January 2015 until 19 February 2015.  A downloadable pdf of the report will be available on the Heritage New Zealand website from 22 January 2015: http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/notified-proposals-and-reviews

Interested parties are invited to write to Heritage New Zealand about the proposal. 

Letters often include reasons for or against the proposal, as well as comments on the information

provided in the assessment report. 

Please address letters to: Rob Hall, General Manager Southern,

Heritage New Zealand Southern Region, P O Box 4403, CHRISTCHURCH.

 

Further information about the List can be found at the Heritage New Zealand website:

http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/about-the-list

 

 

Robyn Burgess | Heritage Advisor Registration | Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga |

P O Box 4403 Christchurch | Ph: (64 3) 3579629 | DDI: 3579619 | Visit www.heritage.org.nz

and learn more about New Zealand’s heritage places

 

 

 

 

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