Cate Walker News Today

In a moving ceremony, the final chapter of a World War I soldier’s journey was completed as his headstone, which had been uplifted from another location, was finally placed on his grave.

Cook Islands WWI NZEF ANZAC Soldiers Research Project team believes their research has led them to between 370 and 410 Cook Islands returned soldiers who are buried throughout the nation.

As we mark the coronation of a new King and the solemn Anzac services held across the Pacific, in Rarotonga and in Aotearoa, it is important to revisit the poignant question posed by Sir Apirana Ngata in his 1943 treatise, ‘The Price of Citizenship’, writes Thomas Tarurongo Wynne.

One hundred and eleven (111) Mangaia-born soldiers were enlisted in the First World War (WWI), according to the Cook Islands WWI New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) ANZAC Soldiers Research Project. The Soldiers Research Project team have now located and documented 43 of the 45 Cook Islands WWI soldiers’ graves and headstones on the island of Mangaia.

Far, far away from home, the lonely grave of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) World War I heroine Ettie Annie Rout is no longer forgotten.