KAMUPENE D
Over the past eighty years there have been numerous attempts to research and record the history of D Company, 28th Māori Battalion. The D Company region is the largest and has the most diverse political, social history due to the geographic spread - from Waikato/Tainui boundary in Manukau, taking in their boundaries with Pare Hauraki, Te Arawa and other Bay of Plenty tribes, Ngāti Tūwharetoa which follows the Ngāti Kahungunu boundaries to Paritū. It includes: Taranaki, Whanganui, Rangitīkei, Manawatū, Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, Horowhenua, Kapiti, Wellington, Te Tau Ihu, Te Waipounamu including Chatham Island and the Pacific.
The current Kamupene D Rua Tekau Mā Waru Trust membership is: Gaye Stanley (Ōtautahi-Te Waipounamu), Lawrence MacDonald (Te Tau Ihu), Dick Smith (Ngā Uri), Tom Matiaha (alternate for Ngā Uri), Rangi Maniapoto (Whanganui/Taranaki), Toro Waaka (Ngāti Kahungunu), Roger Maaka (alternate for Ngāti Kahungunu), Kingi Turner (Waikato/Maniapoto), Lee Hunter (Treasurer), Frances Dagg (Secretary) and Tata Lawton (Chairperson). We still have a vacancy for the Pacific representative.
With the advent of the C Company, 28th Māori Battalion Oral History Project, launched in 1994 and the subsequent publication of Ngā Tama Toa, The Price of Citizenship in 2008 and the diminishing numbers of veterans, there has been an urgency to write the other battalion company histories.
In 2014, the then Minister of Education Hekia Parata (who also chairs the Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships board) and then Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage Christopher Finlayson agreed on the importance of urgently documenting the histories of A, B and D Companies of the 28th Māori Battalion, to complement Nga Tama Toa, the history C Company published in 2008. These histories will be seminal and highly valuable resources for veterans and their families, and provide historical and educational information for the wider New Zealand community. They will commemorate the Battalion’s service to Māoridom and the nation, and inform national memory. The respective Ministries will work in partnership to bring these projects to fruition.
(Ministry of Culture & Heritage media release)
On the 27th June 2015 the inaugural hui was held to form the Kamupene D Rua Tekau Mā Waru Trust (28 Māori Battalion D Company Trust) in Wellington. As is common when membership is not based in one location, the formal documentation to set up the Kamupene D Trust took some time but with great assistance from the Ministry of Education Ngārimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship board administration team the Trust was able to work through the necessary protocols.
In April 2017, the Minister announced the appointment of a Historian for the D Company book. That work has recently ended and new Historian’s have been appointed to complete this task.
Media release: 9 December 2019
The Kamupene D Rua Tekau Mā Waru (D Company 28th Māori Battalion) Trust and Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage are intensifying efforts to complete the D Company history book and need help.
“The Māori Battalion company histories will provide highly valuable historical and educational information to both Māori and the wider New Zealand public,” says Neill Atkinson, Chief Historian Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage.
“Together these histories will acknowledge the Battalion’s outstanding service to Māoridom and the nation.
“In 2017 a researcher was appointed to start work the D Company project, but his term has ended. Our renewed drive to collect all the information needed to complete the D Company history is being led by Kamupene D Rua Tekau Mā Waru trust chair, Tata Lawton, and one of the trustees, Professor Roger Maaka,” Neill Atkinson said.
Tata Lawton says getting whānau on board is vital to speeding up the work required, as they have the stories, letters, diaries and photographs which will reveal and enliven the D Company history.
“Our greatest challenge will be to collect as many individual photographs of the men who served in D Company as is possible,” Tata Lawton said.
“Fortunately, we already have the first 100 or so as these were identified by Major Rangi Logan in the mid-1990s. Major Logan commanded D Company during the war.
“We have a huge challenge ahead documenting our history because the company drew its men from the largest land area, including south Auckland, Waikato, Taranaki, Whanganui, Wairoa, Hastings, Wairarapa, Manawatū, Wellington and the whole South Island.
“Some Pacific Island people who were living in New Zealand during the war also served in D Company,” Tata Lawton said.
Dr Monty Soutar, Manatū Taonga’s Senior Māori Historian and author of the C Company history Nga Tama Toa, will work closely with the D Company History Trust to progress the research.
“This book will not only cover D Company’s major battles and engagements during the Second World War, but also the home front effort,” says Monty Soutar. “And it will discuss the impact of the loss of loved ones on their communities.
“The D Company history, alongside the histories of the other companies, is an opportunity to re-connect the Māori diaspora to what it is to be Māori.
“And to continue the legacy of leadership transferred down the generations through the examples of men like Lieutenant-Colonel Tiwi Love, Major Rangi Logan, Major Jim Matehaere and Captain Paul Te Punga.
“It also gives us as way to recognise the Battalion’s Pākehā leaders – men like Major Humphrey Dyer and Lieutenant ‘Ace’ Woods,” Monty Soutar said.
Background information
D Company was one of four tribal companies (A, B, C, D) that made up the renowned New Zealand 28th (Māori) Battalion. Each company drew their men from different tribal regions. In all, some 900 men served in each company over the duration of the war.
The D Company history was one of three proposed by the Ngārimu VC & 28th Māori Battalion Scholarships Board to mark the 70th Anniversary of the posthumous award of the Victoria Cross to 2/Lt Te Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa Ngārimu in 2013.
These histories will complement the C Company publication, Nga Tama Toa, which was published in 2008. Sir Wira Gardiner completed B Company’s history, Ake Ake Kia Kaha E, earlier this year and it was launched in April. Research for A Company’s history is currently under way, being led by Nga Uri o Kamupene ‘A’ o Rua Tekau Ma Waru - The Descendants of A Company 28 Maori Battalion Trust Board.
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