Remembering
RSA REVIEW • SUMMER 2016
15
WW2 VET A MAN OF DEEDS AND FEW WORDS John Creagh’s World War 2 experiences read like a film script, with tales of escape, clandestine operations and survival against the odds. His war took him from a cave hide-out in the mountains of Crete, blowing up bridges and dodging capture by the Nazis, to two and a half years in the notorious Stalag VIIIb POW camp in Poland. Like many World War 2 veterans, he didn’t like speaking about war and insisted it did not define his life. He hated war and did not want to glorify it with tales of escape and hi-jinx. It was only when he was in his 70s that he talked about his time as a soldier with his son John was born in Melbourne, where his father was a design electrical engineer. The family returned to New Zealand when his father took up a post in Wellington as a designer for New Zealand’s burgeoning hydro-electric schemes. John went to The Terrace School and Wellington Technical School (now Wellington High School). On leaving school he worked as a trainee draughtsman with architecture firm Crichton, McKay & Haughton, Bulleyment Fortune Architects. As a member of the Territorial Army, he was keen to enlist for World War 2. After basic training in 1940 he travelled to Egypt and then Greece. As an engineer he was involved in preparing defence works against the Axis assault. In the retreat across Greece his job was to strengthen local bridges so that Allied tanks could cross and then promptly blow them up to delay the chasing enemy. In Crete, he was again involved in constructing defences. As the Allies retreated south across Crete his unit destroyed bridges and roads so that the German advance was slowed enough to allow troops to be evacuated from the southern beaches. When he and his fellow engineers reached the beach, the last Royal Navy destroyer was heading over the horizon. A British major informed them they had orders to surrender. The Kiwis ignored the orders and headed into the hills with a considerable amount of high explosives. They were hidden by local Cretans by day, and at night tried to create havoc, blowing
Moore-Jones book completes project The launch of the book The Line of Fire has completed a three-stage heritage project by Hamilton’s TOTI Trust for Anzac soldier and artist Horace MooreJones to be publicly recognised and honoured in New Zealand. A central Hamilton street was named after him – Marlborough Place became Sapper Moore-Jones Place, which is where he died saving people in the Hamilton Hotel fire of 1922. Then, last year, a bronze statue atop a chunk of Gallipoli stone was installed. The book, which is strongly photographic and archival, covers Moore-Jones’s life and TOTI’s efforts to have him recognised. The artist, is best known for his Gallipoli painting, The Man and the Donkey, considered among the most important pieces of Australasian war art. The book was launched on June 13, 99 years after his an illustrated lecture on the Gallipoli campaign in Hamilton. He made lecture tours, bringing the truth to the public and using his Gallipoli paintings to illustrate conditions. • The Line of Fire is available from TOTI Trust: Kate McArthur – 021 02418030; info@toti.co.nz; www.toti.co.nz;www.facebook.com/TOTItrust. Price, $30.00 (includes courier post in New
Wellington architect John Creagh was involved in constructing defences in Greece and Crete as the Allies retreated.
up tanks and petrol-supply dumps. However, German reprisals against local civilians became sufficiently awful for the Cretans to ask the Kiwis to stop their trouble-making. John Creagh, by this stage a sergeant, and his fellow engineers were hidden in caves by the Cretans while they planned their escape. They found an anchored fishing boat, and planned to steal it and sail to Malta. But as they were swimming out to the boat, they were spotted by a patrolling Stuka bomber which then bombed the boat out of the water. Creagh was captured the next day. He and his comrades we re transported to Stalag VIIIb, a prisoner-of-war camp in Lamsdorf, Silesia (now Lambinowice, Poland). More than 40,000 prisoners would die at the camp by the
end of the war. Initially the German guards were World War 1 veterans who treated prisoners fairly. This regime changed when these old soldiers were sent to the eastern front to fight the Soviet Union. The new guards were young Nazis and punishments became the norm. Allied prisoners were separated from Polish and Soviet prisoners who they thought were very poorly treated and virtually starved. John Creagh recalled that instead of attempting escape, Allied prisoners would break into the Polish section, smuggle an equal number of Poles and Soviets back into the Allied section, feed them up for a few days and then smuggle them back. After two and a half years as a POW, Creagh, who was severely deafened in the Battle
for Crete, was deemed to be of no use as a soldier and was repatriated by the Red Cross through Barcelona, Spain. Back in New Zealand he continued his architectural studies at Auckland University where he met his wife to be, Vivienne (Viv) Fenton. Although technically still in the army, he went to lectures in civvies until one day, while he was walking with Viv, a woman crossed the road to give him a white feather. A furious Viv chased the woman up the road to return the feather and gave her a stern lecture on her fiance’s service record. After qualifying as an architect John rejoined his old employer. He was involved in many large institutional projects and eventually became a partner in the firm. He was regarded as careful and thorough rather than flamboyant, and the construction of his designs, seldom ran over time or over budget. On retiring in 1982, he indulged his love of tramping, boating, and horse riding. He rode most weeks until well into his 80s, but gave up jumping at 80. He was still walking several kilometres most days in his 90s. Although he was not a yachtsman, his son’s interest in sailing led him to join the Titahi Bay Boating Club, where he designed the clubhouse and supervised its building, and became club commodore. He was also a RSA committee member. On one visit to his son in Britain, he added a side trip to Crete. On the eve of the visit, he was found counting out thousands of US dollars. Quizzed as to what he was doing, he said he had a little job to do. When he was hiding in the hills and caves in Crete, he and his comrades were regularly smuggled food by a young Cretan woman who flirted her way past the German patrols. She and some members of the group had kept in touch, and, knowing she had been ill and fallen on hard times, they had raised some money to help her out. • John Creagh – born January 4, 1918; died September 2016.
SOLDIER, CARPENTER, SHEARER, SINGER, ORATOR Italian campaign veteran Nolan Tariho (“Noel’’) Raihania, who died in October, aged 89, was only 16 when he enlisted. He served with C Company in Italy as part of the 12th Reinforcements. While at Te Aute College in the early 1940s, he heard stories of the war and decided he wanted to enlist in the army. He went to Gisborne to enlist, claiming he was 22. “We were all under age,’’ he recalled in a later interview. This led him to join the Home Guard in 1943, then enlisting in the army. He trained at Linton before heading to Italy. Nolan, who was of Ngai Tamanuhiri, Rongomaiwahine and Ngati Porou descent, was born in Muriwai on November 16, 1926. He was raised by his grandmother, Arawhita Merania Pohatu, in their family home known as “The Palace”. He was educated at Te Muriwai Native School before heading to Te Aute College in 1940. On his return from the war in 1946, he worked as a carpenter. He met his wife, Ana Hine I Ahuarangi Te Ata Iti Te Oparani Rangiriri Raihania (known as Gin) and they were married in 1949. They had nine children– Hine, Iritana, Kumeroa,Wirihana, Te Ihi (Pip), Herewini, Nolan, Na, and Keriana. In 1956 Nolan headed south to work in the shearing sheds, and, in 1958, the family moved to Mataura. He worked as a shearer for 30 years at Mataura and his growing family became his shearing gang During that time he led and tutored the Mataura Maori Club, which helped raise funds for the Maori Education Foundation and competed in many national kapa-haka competitions. He also formed a Maori quartet (The Four
Noel Raihana served with C Company in Italy. In 2011 he was made an officer of the NZ Order of Merit for his services to Maori.
Notes), which was popular around the South Island. From 1968 to 1978 he was on the Mataura Borough Council, and was then appointed a justice of the peace. In 1984 he established the Mataura Marae, Te Hono o Te Ika a Maui ki Ngai Tahu, where Ngoi Pewhairangi taught and aired for the first time her famous waiata E tu tautoko noa In his 60s Nolan and Gin moved back to Tokomaru Bay with the idea of retiring. However, retirement proved elusive. He had qualified as a builder after the war, and his first job on returning to Tokomaru Bay was to roof the marae, Te Hono Ki Rarotonga. He then planned and built the dining room at Waiparapara Marae, which was destroyed by Cyclone Bola. He helped rebuild the marae and became a trustee for Te Runanga o Ngati Porou. All of this work was done for free.
He and Gin also ended up having to fight a land case to win back her land. They were successful, and then managed the land, creating the first organic corn and pumpkin maize on the East Coast. He was an eloquent speaker in both Maori and English, and sang Italian songs in a tenor voice. He belonged to the United Sports Club in Tokomaru Bay and the Gisborne RSA, and in 2008 became the national president of the 28th Maori Battalion. Many still considered him president even after the association was officially ended in 2012. In 2011 Nolan was made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to Maori and in 2014 met Pope Francis and Prince Harry at the Battle of Cassino commemorations in Italy. • Nolan (Noel) Raihani – born November 16, 1926; died October 21, 2016.