Source: Radio New Zealand
New Zealand national anthem sung at the Auckland memorial service. RNZ / Marika Khabazi
A British World War expert is expected to reveal how Kiwi troops compared to their Australian counterparts in both World Wars.
Professor Gary Sheffield is one of 34 historians who will challenge and explore quirky, controversial and overlooked stories in New Zealand’s military history at the seventh conference, in Wellington, organised by the New Zealand Military History Committee (NZMHC).
According to the Professional Historians’ Association of New Zealand/Aotearoa, the subjects will be “crises, characters and controversies in New Zealand’s military history”.
NZMHC chair John Crawford said they will be “looking at all sorts of different aspects of New Zealand’s military history [ranging] “from the Zealand wars right through to defence policy controversies in recent decades”.
As for Sheffield’s supposed claim about Kiwi soldiers being better than their Australian colleagues, Crawford said “different” would be a better way to describe it.
“I think he thinks that they’re better in some regards, the Australians are better in other regards,” Crawford told Morning Report.
“From my own work, I know that some British commanders preferred the Kiwis because they were less trouble behind the front line than the Australians, who had perhaps a stronger larrakin culture. “
Asked if talking up New Zealand soldiers was in the Anzac spirit, Crawford said there was “an element of rivalry” in that spirit.
“But I think the overriding element of the Anzac spirit is mutual regard and respect and a great tradition of working together. So I don’t think anything Gary’s going to say at our conference is going to impact on that at all.
“The thing about New Zealand military history is that many important subjects have not really been dealt with in any depth at all, so we have the fruits of really interesting new research being presented by a whole range of people – from graduate students through to leading military historians.
“We try to get, you know, have a very inclusive approach and get people involved so we’ve got all sorts of papers being presented.”
New Zealand had a unique military history compared with other nations, Crawford said.
“Of course it’s the Māori element which stands out. It makes New Zealand military history unique. We’ve got both the New Zealand Wars with Māori fighting on both sides, we have the strong involvement of Māori in the New Zealand Armed Forces from a very early date, so that’s something that really stands out.
“But there are also other aspects of our military history which are quite unique and of particular interest. I think particularly of the strong history of military service in Taranaki dating back to the mid-19th century. There’s things that happened at Taranaki [that were] quite quirky.”
The conference is set to take place in Wellington next month.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
