By Captain Julia Leckey

September 2006.

Seven New Zealand Defence Force personnel travelled from Bosnia to France in September to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

The commemoration was held at the New Zealand monument in Longueval, France, where the New Zealand Division played a key part in the 1916 Somme offensive.

New Zealand soldiers serving in Bosnia formed a catafalque guard under the watchful eye of Warrant Officer Kemp Solomon, who is second in command of the Liaison and Observation Team in Bosnia. WO Solomon took to his duties like a duck to water, his pace stick back under his arm.

Defence Attachés from Britain, France, South Africa, Australia, India and Canada attended the ceremony, which was coordinated by Brigadier Paul Southwell, Defence Attaché to London They were joined by New Zealand Ambassador to France Sarah Dennis, the Mayor of Longueval, serving as the French National Defence Representative, and a number of returned servicemen, locals and passers by.

The ceremony, which involved a 30-man guard and 35-man band from the French Defence Force, had a distinctive New Zealand flavour, incorporating New Zealand music and a traditional Maori kairanga.

Commemorations began with a battlefield tour led by Commander Paul Mayer, military assistant to Brigadier Southwell, to set the scene for the events that took place on that day, 90 years ago.

In true Army fashion, at dawn on 15 September – the time the New Zealand advance began, 90 years earlier – a small, touching ceremony was held at Caterpillar cemetery, where the bodies of many soldiers who died on the battlefield lay, and the body of the Unknown Warrior had previously lain. 

From there, the group ran the route of the advance, finishing at the small memorial in the Longueval township.