WELLINGTON REGIMENT: N.Z.E.F 1914-1918

The history of the New Zealand Empire Forces in the Great War is a heroic and a proud one, and this unusually full and frank regimental history does justice to a regiment that was at the centre of the struggle. The authors attribute the regiment’s outstanding record to a ‘happy combination of a reasonable discipline – not enough to prejudice initiative, but sufficient to get a maximum team result’. The history records the departure of the regiment from its Wellington home, its training and baptism of fire in the Egyptian desert and its leading part in the gallant but doomed Gallipoli campaign against the Turks, in which it served continuously from the first landings in April 1915 to the eventual evacuation in December of that year. The regiment, now forming part of the New Zealand Division, fought around Armentieres before and after the battle of the Somme, in which it also served at Fricourt and Flers. The regiment had its first taste of the Ypres Salient in Ploogsteert Wood, before taking part in the triumphant Battle of Messines in June 1917, after which it was plunged into the third Ypres (Passchendaele) campaign at Gravenstafel, Wieltje and Polygon Wood. After the German Spring offensives of 1918, the regiment was sent south to the Somme to help plug the gap in the line punched by the enemy, seeing hard fighting around Mailly Mailly and Colincamps. The regiment’s battalions took part in the Allied counter-offensives in the summer and autumn of 1918, experiencing much tough fighting crossing the St Quentin canal. The Wellington regiment ended its war after the Armistice by crossing the Rhine into Germany. This fine history is illustrated with 40 vivid photographs; a Roll of Honour and a list of awards and honours , as well as two maps.