This is my armistice day essay


Armistice Day.

Taliesha Hair, Year 8 Winton School

The field was empty, no gunshots or men were to be heard or seen. The

trenches were silent and you could now hear the many mice scattering along

the muddy floors.

It was the day war was put to a halt, the 11th

There was joy and happiness all around. But for some families it was to

be further devastation when news of their family members or friends

was not to return. There were over 100,000 soldiers from New Zealand

who fought in World War 1. Over 16,700 of them died, and 40,000 were

 day of the 11th

 month, 1918.

Curtis D. Bennet, in his poem “Remember Me” describes what it was like

when war came along. He also touched on what it was like when the war

ended. In his poem it creates an image in ones mind about how he and

others didn’t want to go to war. An Otago man named Archibald Baxter

also refused to go to war and ended up fighting his own war for his beliefs

in New Zealand before being forced to train as a soldier and shipped out to

Europe under protest.

Many young men and women like Archibald Baxter and Curtis Benet refused

to go to war. Many were forced to fight and trained to become solders.

They lived and fought in bloody, drenched and infested trenches, witnesses

to the deaths of many friends and foe around them. For many if not all,

these images were imprinted in their memories, never to be forgotten and

impossible to erase.

On the 11 day of November, 1918 the German Kaiser fled and the new

German government put a halt to the war. The Armistice amongst Germany

and the Allies (also known as the Armistice of Compiègne after the location

it was signed) was an agreement to end WW1. When signed it brought

joy and hope to soldiers from many countries that were left, barely alive,

knowing that they would now see their families and loved ones. For many

families though across the oceans, which were celebrating the end of the

war and waiting the return of their husbands, sons, sisters, brothers and

daughters, were never to see them again. Instead the devastation of the

receipt of personal possessions was returned instead. I can only image

it would feel like you had just been shot with a bullet to the heart, and

you cried, not blood, but tears. It was a spitting image of what war had

created and a memory that could never be forgotten.

The Ode of Remembrance taken from Laurence Binon’s poem “For the

Fallen” is also recited on Remembrance Day to say “we will remember“.

Armistice Day is the day when we give all our time and thoughts to

remember those who fought for us in WW1. We wear a Poppy which is a

symbol of the flower that grew within the bloody lands of Flanders field

where the bodies of many of our loved ones lye. Two minutes silence

became a part of Armistice day after the first anniversary of the war.

In London on the 11th

magical effect on the nation. A weary woman wiped away her tears and

a man beside her bowed his head and removed his hat. Cars, trams and

people stopped and a wave of hush swept the city. Some say the silence

was the inaudible pain felt amongst survivors and their families. These two

minutes are a mark of respect for those solders who sacrificed their lives

and for those that fought and returned.

The month of November is a time of year, where ceremonies all over the

world take place and red poppies are worn in memory.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

them, nor the years condemn.

 November 1919 when the clock struck 11, it had a

Age shall not weary

 At the going down of the sun and in the

We will remember them." (Laurence Binyon (1869 - 1943)

We must commemorate Armistice Day. It is a time where our communities

come together to remember those who fought for us in the Great World

War. Their story is our story and should be your story to always be retold

and never forgotten.

Lest we forget!

By Taliesha Hair

Winton School

Year 8, Age 13