He taonga tuku iho: Remembering 28th Māori Battalion soldier Robert McLean

Daughter dedicates decades to preserving the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion

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His older brother enlisted first. Then he followed. One of his younger brothers, Ben McLean, also served and later became one of only two Māori soldiers held as prisoners of war at Colditz Castle.

Despite his own mother’s wishes, McLean enlisted.

“He ran away,” Piripi said. “He never went home. Even when he returned, he never went back. Because he felt guilty. She died while he was away.”

Memory of 28th Maori Battalion carried on by whānau

His mother had been the only one writing to him during the war. But her words carried great strength and significance.

“When he got a letter, she said, ‘we have karakia back home at seven o’clock every morning. Join us.’”

And so, he did.

“In the middle of everything, he’d stop and have karakia,” Piripi said.

“His mates would look at him and go, ‘what the hell is happening?’ Then they realised he was having karakia, so, they all joined him.”

“I think that probably was one of the reasons why he came home.”

Like many of his generation, McLean spoke little about the war: “He didn’t talk about it,” Piripi said. “Not very many of them did.” But the impact showed in other ways.

“He couldn’t sleep at night in the silence,” he said.

“That used to bring nightmares of him trying to be quiet [during the war]…So our house was always noisy. Singing, talking. It kept him grounded. Reminded him he wasn’t back there.”

Reflecting on his father, Piripi said he was a soft and gentle man.

“When he went to the reunions or he met up with other people from that era, he was really quiet.

“There were sometimes … when I had to take him to the bathroom, you know… I’d be sitting outside and I’d hear him cry.

“I just said, are you all right, old fella? And he goes, yeah, I’m all right. But he would be crying. And he’d come out and he’d clean himself up and that’d be it.”

Those moments of mamae were never spoken of directly, even amongst the other mōrehu, Piripi said, but they were understood.

“When he talked about the war, he didn’t talk about the death. He talked about the funny parts, you know,” Piripi said.

“The things he was telling us, was that, they never walked anywhere during the war. What they did was they found a truck or a bombed vehicle… fixed it up, steal petrol from the officers, and off they’d go.”

He laughed recalling it.

“The Italians would find their pigs missing and the boys would be having a hāngī…Pigs would be in the hāngi… They were funny, those fellas.”

In 2002, Piripi travelled with his parents and brother John to Egypt for the 60th anniversary of El Alamein, alongside other veterans and their whānau.

Morehu from A, B, C and D Companies were amongst the rōpū, all of whom have since passed on.

Pirpi said the journey revealed parts of his father he had never seen before.

While visiting a museum, an Italian man greeted McLean in Italian.

“Our dad answered him,” Piripi said. “In Italian.”

It was the first time his sons had heard him speak it.

“We asked him when he last spoke it… he said: ‘When I left, in 1945.’”

At El Alamein, the group gathered to honour those who never returned. Markers were placed on graves and hīmene filled the urupā.

“Many of them were very young,” Piripi said.

“That brought many a tear from everyone around.”

There was one moment that revealed just how strong his father was.

By then, his father was frail and in a wheelchair. He had been asked to recite the ode in te reo Māori, but declined.

“He said, ‘I’m not going to say it sitting down.’”

Later, as the group prepared to leave, McLean stood tall.

“He said, ‘I got pushed in, but I’m going to walk out.’”

Step by step, McLean walked from the cemetery to the gates, leading the way.

“I just thought, you’re a tough old bugger,” Piripi said.

“That was quite a beautiful thing to see. Because that really showed his mana. He wanted to honour the people that weren’t coming back with him.”

At one point, the group attended a memorial alongside Italian veterans. Tensions rose, shaped by memories of loss on both sides.

“There was unrest,” Piripi said.

“They were quite upset about us being there, because they could remember losing their comrades by these soldiers…So we got up and left.”

“Even though [my father] didn’t show his mamae or his sadness in front of them, he certainly showed it when he was on his own. And he did cry.”

It wasn’t until years after McLean’s passing in 2004 that their whānau learned more about his service.

In 2011, Piripi’s sister contacted Veterans’ Affairs to ask whether their father had received any medals. They discovered he had been awarded the Military Medal, along with other honours.

This citation records his actions in the April 1990 NZ 28 Maori Battalion Golden Jubilee Reunion booklet:

During the crossing of the SANTERNO river on the 10 April, 1945, Pte McLEAN commanded the section which was detailed to form the Company’s initial bridgehead, during which he displayed outstanding courage and initiative in that, moving forward under hostile shelling and spandau fire, he led his section against enemy resistance wherein the section destroyed one enemy mortar and crew while he personally captured a spandau post killing fifteen of the enemy. The bridgehead thus created his Coy passed through to fight their way to their final objective, after which Pte McLEAN led his section up to consolidate on the final objective. After consolidation the enemy counter attacked several times but the sector his section held was defended gallantly by his men and on the whole, the success of the section and his platoon was due to the dash and gallant leadership of this soldier.

After the war, McLean stayed behind to find his younger brother Ben, and brought him home.

According to Piripi, when they returned to Wellington, they were given little more than a train ticket north. From there, they had to find work and accommodation wherever they could. Getting all the way back to the Hokianga was out of reach financially, so they stayed where they could and worked to survive.

“They had no money,” he said. “So they just took whatever work they could.”

Piripi recalled his father living in the Sylvia Park army barracks in Tāmaki Makaurau, paying rent and doing labouring jobs to get by.

“It was funny because when they got paid, they had to pay rent on all of that too,” he said. “I thought, these fellas didn’t even own Sylvia Park. It was run by the government, and yet they were asking them for rent.”

Historians have long documented differences in how Māori and Pākehā soldiers were supported after both world wars, particularly around housing, land and state assistance.

Piripi said that difference was visible in what his father lived through.

“When the Pākehā soldiers came home, they got the ticket tape parades coming down and everything wonderful,” he said. “Then they got given houses by the government.

“Our fellas came home and they didn’t get any of that. They were put on a train or sent away on a bus to go home, back to where they come from.”

He said many Māori veterans were left to find work through whoever would take them on.

“They met carpetbaggers,” Piripi said: “Come and work for us, we’ve got money, you can work for us. And they would never get paid the same amount as a Pākehā person.”

“The Māori had to survive in their own way of things.”

That lack of support continued long after the war, Piripi said.

“You wouldn’t believe it…Up until 1949, my dad had to have a passport to go wherever he wanted to go.”

Even travelling for sport required official permission, Piripi said.

“The Police pulled over my dad. He had a passport saying this person is playing in a sporting tournament,” Piripi said. “And then they [Police] would say, well, it finishes at three o’clock, you better be on your way home by then.”

Every movement was accounted for.

“It had your name, where you were from, your reason for being there, who you were staying with, how long you were staying, and how you were getting home,” he said.

“And you had to have enough money to get back. Ninety per cent of the time they didn’t.”

When reflecting on his father, Piripi said he was a man of quiet strength.

He didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He was physically powerful, but gentle in his nature.

“He never raised a hand to us,” Piripi said.

That discipline shaped their home, but so did aroha.

“He always had time for us. He played with us. He was a good sportsman… but he was very quiet.”

Piripi said those values stayed with him long after childhood.

“That’s why I am what I am today. Because of him.”

Piripi went on to serve in the Navy for more than 20 years, before retiring to care for his wife as she battled terminal cancer. Today, he lives with his youngest son, and two of his four mokopuna, while facing cancer himself.

The memories of his father remain steady in the everyday moments.

“You know, we’d go over there and chop wood,” he said. “He’d chop the tree down, and I’d be there cleaning it up.”

“And then he’d just pick the whole thing up and carry it. I was thinking, who is this fella. He was strong. He could just do it all himself.”

Even after being shot in the hand during the war, and losing strength in it, that same quiet determination stayed with him.

“He just got on with it,” Piripi said.

Rāpata Pōtahi Makarini Tītore, Robert McLean, passed away on 28 February 2004, aged 84.

His legacy is carried forward by his children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

With no more surviving veterans of the 28th Māori Battalion, their stories live on through those who carry them.

“We still need to talk about it,” Piripi said.

Ka maumahara tonu tātou ki a rātou – we will remember them.

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