For 100 years my Uncle Syd’s remains have been lying in row B, grave 23, of a little cemetery in the northeastern French town of Le Quesnoy.
From left: John, Stella, Nancy, Syd, Hina, Lillian, and Dave Murrell. Photo: Supplied
The remains of his remarkable boss, Hugh McKinnon, lie next to his, in grave 24.
Syd was my grand-uncle, the fourth of five children raised in Wellington. He was a bank clerk for the Union Bank of Australasia. When he was killed, 20,000 kilometres from his Ellice Street home, he was 26 years old.
For my cousins and me, Uncle Syd has become near-mythic. My mum talked to me about him, almost with awe, as had her mum to her, as I have to my children.
It wasn’t just that he’d died prematurely and dramatically, doing his duty for king and country; in a family full of colour and high emotions, Syd was the tranquil centre. If his sisters clashed, he was the peacemaker. When his brutal father went too far in ‘disciplining’ the children, it was Syd who comforted whomever of his siblings had received the latest thrashing.
He was ‘a good boy’ who always did the right thing. His mother, three elder sisters and younger brother relied on and adored him. Even his father treated him with more respect than he did the others.
Syd volunteered to go to war almost as soon as it was declared. In August 1914, long before anyone on this side of the world had even heard of Gallipoli, Lance-Corporal Murrell sailed to German Samoa in the first New Zealand action of the war.
The ‘Samoa Advance Party’ was to destroy a wireless radio station which was capable of sending signals to the German fleet in the Pacific, and even to Berlin. As it happened, when the Kiwis arrived, there was no German resistance and the mission was completed without loss.
On his return from Samoa in April 1915, Syd went back to civilian life. Speculation among the cousins today is that his father was playing up and Syd was needed at home to calm him. Typically, his discharge paper said he was of “very good character”.
The news arrived that two cousins had died at Gallipoli. The family reeled. In October, Syd re-enlisted.
He spent a year training in New Zealand, moving quickly through the ranks. Military historian and author Dr Ian McGibbon says it was unusual for a soldier to take a year to leave New Zealand. He says Syd was obviously an asset in training other soldiers, and his departure was repeatedly delayed.
In August 1916, however, Lieutenant S A Murrell finally embarked for England. He arrived in Plymouth in late October and two weeks later he was in France.
Back in Ellice Street, the family held its collective breath.
He remained unscathed until Messines Ridge in June 1917 when he received severe gunshot wounds to the neck. And buttocks. He was shipped back to England, his injuries at least allowing him to avoid the hell of Passchendaele, which took the life of his brother-in-law.
By April 1918, he’d recovered, qualified as a gas warfare instructor, and was back in France. He was eventually made adjutant to the commanding officer of the 2nd Wellington Battalion.
That commander, Major H E McKinnon, had landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. He’d fought at the Somme, Messines, Passchendaele, and a couple of other significant, but lesser-known, battles. He’d twice won the Military Cross – just one click down from the VC at the time. He was 30.
Syd and Hugh McKinnon were part of the New Zealand Division, which in turn was part of the 3rd Army, helping to shunt the tired and demoralised Germans eastwards out of France.
On 4 November 1918 the armistice was just a week away, but nobody in the field knew that.
The action that day began at 5.30am and all day the New Zealanders doggedly drove their bit of the frontline towards Belgium. The casualties were light. They advanced 10 kilometres, captured 2000 German soldiers and 60 field guns. Everywhere they went, the delighted locals pressed coffee, milk and fruit on them. It was a good day. In fact, it was considered the most successful day of the entire war for the New Zealand Division.
And then there was Le Quesnoy.
A mere sidebar to the main action of the day, the liberation of the town from four years of German occupation has nevertheless gone down in history because of Kiwi ingenuity.
The New Zealanders had encircled the walled and moated medieval town, to cordon it off from the rest of the day’s advance. It was hoped the Germans inside would surrender. They refused.
A softening-up bombardment was deemed out of the question because of the danger to the French citizens of the town.
Sydney Alan Murrell Photo: Supplied
So, in a move that has become legend, the Kiwi soldiers of the 4th Rifles balanced a simple ladder against one of the town’s walls and went over the top. Shortly after, more New Zealanders poured through a northern gate to the town. The Germans gave up. Not a single citizen had been hurt.
The townsfolk were jubilant. After four years under the heel of the occupiers they had been returned to France.
At the same time, other New Zealand units were continuing their drive ever-eastwards.
Most of the Germans had fled the area and, by nightfall, there was only the occasional firefight and periods of shelling.
Suddenly, one of those sporadic shells lit the dark sky. When the smoke cleared, Uncle Syd, Hugh McKinnon, and two scouts were dead.
Syd, who’d been in the first New Zealand action of the war, died in the last. And his redoubtable commander had survived multiple hellish campaigns, to die next to him.
The next day the New Zealand Division was relieved by the British, and that was the end of the war for most of the Kiwis.
The news of the armistice reached Ellice Street before the black-edged telegram. I cannot imagine…
The scaling of the walls of Le Quesnoy. Photo: Archives New Zealand
In the subsequent family quarrels and joys, its tragedies and achievements, the births of his nieces and nephews, their children, their children, and their children, Syd has faded. My sister’s grandchildren – the generation furthermost from the war – are bemused I’m going all the way to France to put a paper flower on a headstone on 4 November.
The people of Le Quesnoy, however, have not forgotten. A century after their great-grandparents were liberated by the Néo-Zélandais, their gratitude appears undimmed. Reminders are everywhere – streets are named for New Zealand and New Zealanders. The primary school is named after Leslie Averill, the first soldier up the ladder. And on the outskirts is the immaculately kept WW1 cemetery.
One does, however, question the sacrifice. Syd was such a solid bloke and it seems unbearable he died on the cusp of peace. If the New Zealanders had stayed in their bivvies for the day, having a smoke and writing letters home, it would have been all the same, wouldn’t it?
Ian McGibbon disagrees. He says the massive Allied attack on 4 November – which included the famous, but actually incidental, Le Quesnoy liberation – finished the war more quickly than expected.
“Had it not happened, the Germans may have been able to pull back and re-establish a defence line. With winter approaching they could have prolonged the war into 1919, hoping war weariness might secure an armistice on better terms than they received on 11 November.
“It’s a ‘what if’ question. The fact is, the massive offensive was the final straw for the Germans and they hastened to bring the fighting to an end before the Allies invaded Germany itself.”
So Uncle Syd didn’t die for nothing. The last great attack he was a part of saved lives in the long run.
And – unlike so many others whose unknown bones still lie under the soil, unmarked and unhonoured – he does have ‘a place’. It gives me somewhere to put a poppy and remember just how remarkable he was.
For the same reason, if there’s no one there on 4 November for Major Hugh McKinnon, I’ll put a poppy on his grave too.