The Star: March 07, 2024

Thursday March 7 2024 The Star
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
NEWS 9
now family campaign for memorial
REUNITED: James Herbert ‘Bert’ Jarman with wife Lottie
and son Jimmie after his return from the Middle East in
February 1919. Right – the couple’s grave.
Bert is buried in the same
Greendale Cemetery plot as his
wife Lottie, who died, aged 90,
in 1978. They are at rest near
Essendon, the farm where Paul
Jarman lives.
He has also gone farther afield
to visit the resting places of
Frank and Ness.
Frank, the first Jarman lad
to volunteer, and the second
of Thomas and Annie’s eight
children, enlisted with the
Canterbury Mounted Rifles as a
trooper and headed for Egypt in
October 1914.
He was killed in action, aged
28, during the assault on Chunuk
Bair on August 6, 1915 and
is buried at the No 2 Outpost
Cemetery on the Turkish
peninsula.
Undeterred by his brother’s
death, Ness, the youngest of the
five boys, also enlisted when he
joined the Canterbury Infantry
Regiment, C Company in
October 1916.
He left for France the following
May and was killed on August
25, 1918 when the Canterbury
Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion
fought the Germans at Bapaume.
The 25-year-old Lance
Corporal is buried at the
Grevillers British Cemetery at
Pas-de-Calais.
“It’s very touching to see your
family name there in those
places. It’ll be nice to see them in
Kirwee too,” Paul Jarman said.
Conscription was introduced
in August 1916; Bert was selected
and reported for duty with the
New Zealand Expeditionary
Force 33rd Reinforcements,
Mounted Rifles Brigade, in
March 1917, after getting the
harvest in.
He arrived in Egypt four days
before Christmas 1917, and
although he survived Turkish
onslaughts in Palestine, Trooper
Jarman fell seriously ill with
malaria, which continued to
linger.
When he returned to Essendon
Bert was perpetually blighted
by the mosquito-borne disease,
though it was surgery for
appendicitis which proved fatal
for the 32-year-old father of
three.
He succumbed to chloroform
poisoning on May 25, 1922 – his
beloved Lottie’s birthday.
Paul Jarman’s father Keith
was three-weeks-old when Bert
died, but his correspondence
home – and the letters written
by Frank and Ness ensures their
wartime exploits are known by
generations.
A cache of about 50 letters
were found in the 1980s and
were used as the basis of a
family history, In Foreign Fields,
published in 2015. Copies of the
letters are archived at Te Papa
and the National Army Museum
in Waiouru.
Although the brothers describe
death and destruction, there was
also an interesting agricultural
element to their ordeals.
“They all talk about where
they visited from a farming
perspective. Farming on the
banks of the Nile in Egypt, and
other places,” Paul Jarman said.
“It was nice they had some
good experiences along the way.
They took leave in England and
went up through Scotland.
“They got to see things in the
days where travel was pretty
limited for anyone.”
On Anzac Day, Paul Jarman
attends the Darfield dawn
service or the remembrance for
the 20th Armoured Regiment in
Riccarton, because Keith fought
within it in Italy, returning home
safe after World War 2.
• Turn to page 10
REMEMBRANCE:
Top – Trooper
Frank Elworthy
Jarman’s grave
at No 2 Outpost
Cemetery on
the Gallipoli
Peninsula.
Left – the honour
roll for World
War 1 inside
the Kirwee
Community Hall.
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at ecan.govt.nz/burner
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Find out more by calling
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To be eligible you must be the
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