Pukekohe RSA memorial

The Pukekohe Returned Services Lawn Cemetery was established at the western end of the municipal cemetery in Wellington Street in 1943. On 12 April 1949, Governor-General Sir Bernard Freyberg V.C. unveiled a brick memorial chaplet in the lawn cemetery. This displayed a Pukekohe roll of honour for the First World War and a Pukekohe and districts roll of honour for the Second World War.

The original chaplet, which stood in the centre of the cemetery, was demolished in 1998. A new chaplet of much the same design but placed further back in the cemetery was unveiled on 11 November 1998.

A total of six inscribed brass panels and two plaques are mounted on the semi-circular brick chaplet. The first two panels on the left list the names of the First World War dead. The third panel bears the following dedication: “To our glorious dead. This chaplet was erected by the schoolchildren as a tribute to those men who went overseas from Pukekohe and made the supreme sacrifice in the war of 1914 – 1918 and to those men who went overseas from Bombay, Buckland, Mauku, Mangatangi, Mangatawhiri, Paerata, Patumahoe, Pokeno, Pukekohe, Pukekohe East, Puni, Rama rama, and Waiau Pa and made the supreme sacrifice in the war of 1939 – 1945. ‘The path of duty was the way to glory.’”

Underneath this is a plaque which commemorates the chaplet’s unveiling.

The fourth panel honours those served and those who fell in the New Zealand Wars, Boer War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Malaya and Borneo, Vietnam, the Gulf War and United Nations operations (no names are given). Underneath this is a plaque which commemorates the chaplet’s rededication.

The last two panels list the names of the Second World War dead.

Sources: 'Vice-Regal Visit', NZ Herald, 11/4/1949, p. 2; 'Vice-Regal Visit', Franklin Times, 13/4/1949, p. 5; '"Lest We Forget": Memorial Chaplet Unveiled', Franklin Times, 20/4/1949, p. 5; Borough of Pukekohe Golden Jubilee, 1912-1962, ed. N.M. Morris and N.K. Brown, Pukekohe, 1962, [pp. 42, 55]; ‘Veterans Remember Fallen Comrades in Solemn Ceremony’, Franklin County News, 17/11/1998, pp. 1, 3.