Opening of the Carrière Wellington, New Zealand Tunnellers Museum, Arras France

Speech notes for Mahara Okeroa address at the Opening of the Carrière Wellington, New Zealand Tunnellers Museum, Arras France

Acknowledgements

• Jean-Marie Vanlerenberghe, Mayor of Arras
• Mme Catherine Genisson, Senator and Vice-President of the Regional Council
• Marie-Jeanne Poux, New Zealand-France Association

First I would like to pay my respects to the beautiful city of Arras, with its long and rich history. I am aware of the terrible damage suffered by Arras in both World Wars, and its role as an Allied stronghold in the First World War.

I salute your wish to create a museum to remember all the brave young men who fought in the Battle of Arras and the men who made the tunnels and caverns below us.

The Carrière Wellington will help us to remember them.

Thank you for inviting a representative of the New Zealand government to be here today – I know that the Prime Minister is very interested in this project and would have liked to be here herself.

We in New Zealand are also deeply grateful for your efforts to re-open the tunnels and caverns that members of the New Zealand Tunnelling Company constructed in the lead-up to the Battle of Arras.

It is a real honour for New Zealand that the Museum has been located in the Carrière Wellington, which the tunnellers named after our capital city.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to visit Arras and to see for myself the work undertaken by my countrymen.

Over 400 men of the New Zealand Tunnelling Company worked on this astonishing underground network of caverns and tunnels.

I am proud to note that members of the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion also spent some months assisting the tunnellers. This Battalion included the first Māori troops to be on active service outside New Zealand, and also included troops from the Pacific Islands.

Descendents of one of the New Zealand tunnellers, Ernest Robert Norton, Quartermaster-Serjeant in the New Zealand Tunnelling Company, are here today.

Three generations have made the journey: Pat Philson, Ernest’s daughter, along with her son Rod, from New Zealand, and Ernest’s great-grandson Matt, from Scotland.

Thank you for coming - your presence adds a special dimension to this ceremony.

Now that the tunnels have been re-opened, I am sure that the Carrière will become a site of pilgrimage for descendents of other members of the New Zealand Tunnelling Company and the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion.

It has been an extraordinary experience to visit the caverns, to imagine the thousands of troops milling about, the bustling kitchens, the shunting of goods up the light rail line, the activities in the operating theatre and the medical clinic.

And very moving to see the personal traces left behind, in the graffiti and drawings on the walls.

The caverns were given names of towns and cities in New Zealand by the tunnellers. These names would have been constant reminders of their home, so far away, that they all hoped to see again one day.

Now these New Zealand names will be reminders to visitors that New Zealand miners undertook this extraordinary task.

They had been recruited from coal and gold mines in New Zealand, and used their skills and experience to devastating effect. They became renowned for their hard work and rapid progress – their record was 91 metres in one day!

Ties between our two countries were forged in times of war. Projects such as this strengthen those ties, and ensure that these brave men will never be forgotten.

Thank you, on behalf of the people of New Zealand, for making your dream to have a museum into a reality.

Congratulations to the city of Arras and the Regional authorities for the successful conclusion of such an important project.