TWO years ago, on a sunny day on January 10, more than 1000 people from across the district marched as one to remember the Kurrajongs.
Men from Moree had embarked on a similar march in 1916, to enlist in the 33rd Battalion AIF, otherwise known as New England's Own.
Within a year, many would lay dead on the fields of Flanders.
The 2016 re-enactment march began at Varley Oval and concluded at the Inverell Pioneer Village at the original Inverell Railway station where the Kurrajongs boarded a train to their fates in Europe.
It took two years to plan and when it was held re-enactment march committee vice president Ann Hodgens OAM was at a loss for words.
“It’s just awesome, I don’t know how else to describe it,” she said.
“What a privilege to sit on that platform this morning and see this sea of faces.
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“It’s just absolutely incredible, and very heart-warming and wonderful to think that so many families come together and supported this.”
About 300 descendants of the Kurrajongs travelled from all parts of Australia for the event, which featured re-enactments of the 1916 speeches made by former dignitaries recited by their contemporary counterparts.
Siblings Cecelia Byrne, Donna Hunt and Neil Byrne travelled from Queensland for the event in honour of their grandfather and great uncle, Kurrajongs Paddy and Charlie Byrne.
“They were in North West Queensland, and they returned all the way to Inverell to join the Kurrajongs,” Neil said.
“So it’s very much a family day for us. It’s not about war; it’s about family for us.”
Marissa and Anneliese Clarke, aged 6 and 8, took part in the march beside their parents.
“We were marching in the parade because my pop’s dad fought in war,” Marissa said.
“Hector Clarke,” Anneiliese said, and added she was proud of him.
“Because he fought in war for the country.”
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The march was led by NSW mounted police in historical costume, Senior Constables Leanne Ford and Kelly Bourke on their horses Sovereign and Jackson.
They found a shady spot at the Pioneer Village and Sr Constable Bourke said ceremonial duties were a large part of their work across the state.
There in period dress, Light Horsemen Troopers Tim Hough and Wayne Mills were cooling off.
“Both our fathers were Light Horsemen. They were in the militia,” Trooper Hough said.
“It’s very satisfying; people really appreciate us going in these sorts of parades.”
After the ceremony, the Kurrajong descendants collected for a group photo, and as they dispersed, conversations could be overheard from knots of people discussing their First World War connections.
Ann felt it was a time of change for families considering those veterans.
“I was thinking about it yesterday, and I wondered if there’s still an element of grief over what happened, perhaps because it wasn’t talked about in families,” she said.
“Now people are finding out more, and more stories are coming out, and people and learning more, and there is this desire, this very strong desire to remember those men in war.”
Indeed, it would have been a similar warm January morning in 1916 when the train carrying the Kurrajong Marchers pulled into Moree railway station.
The Kurrajong March was a recruitment campaign that saw a train wend its way from Inverell to Narrabri, picking up 150 eager young men along the way.
Their ultimate stop in New England was Armidale, where they joined the 33rd Battalion under the command of Major Leslie Morshead.
(In World War II, the then Lieutenant General Leslie James Morshead led Australian and British troops at the Siege of Tobruk and the Second Battle of El Alamein.
(This spawned the “Rats of Tobruk” legend.)
After training at Armidale, the Kurrajongs, as part of the 33rd Battalion, set sail to Plymouth, England, from where they were sent to France five days before Christmas, 1916.
Their ultimate destiny was Belgium, for the third and final Battle of Ypres, also known as the battle of Passchendaele.
The muddy fields, in which many wounded soldiers drowned, could not have been further from the blue skies and open lands of New England.
The gloom was only interrupted by a distant railway junction, Roulers, a small thicket called Polygon Wood and Menin Road, which led to the Front Line.
Fighting at Ypres had been more or less consistent since 1914 and, by 1917, when the Kurrajongs were deployed, it was barely more than a muddy, desolate area.
The Third Battle of Ypres claimed 38,000 Australian soldiers.
In one of those battles, on September 20, two Australian divisions sustained 5013 casualties while killing, wounding, or capturing about 4200 Germans.
It has often been described as being one of the most senseless battles of all times; the aim was to capture the Passchendaele ridge, held by German forces and from where they blocked occupied ports on the English Channel coast, just north of Ypres.
In October and November, the Australians, along with the Belgians, Canadians and British, gave a final push to capture Passchendaele,
It proved a senseless battle, as British prime minister David Lloyd George noted in his memoirs.
Exhausted, the Australians were forced to retreat and hand over to their allies, the Canadians.
That corps eventually took Passchendaele on November 6, bringing the operation to a close.
But it claimed the highest number of Australian casualties from any battle in World War I.
