Search continues for Bluff memorial for brothers killed at the Somme

July 5, 2021

Over the decades, the Mckenzie Memorial to two young brothers killed on the same day in 1916 got buried in the undergrowth.

The McKenzie memorial once stood proud over the tiny town of Bluff to honour two young brothers killed on the same day at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Over the decades, it succumbed to the undergrowth of Bluff Hill, disappearing from sight - but not from the memory of a group of locals who are determined to find it and return it to its former glory.

Ian and George McKenzie were killed on the same day in France during World War I.

“That had to be just devastating to Bluff,” war memorial researcher Ann Robbie said.

Their father built a memorial to try and give their mother some solace.

“Mum used to be able to stand on her back doorstep of the house and look up the hill and she could see the stone,” New Zealand Remembrance Army’s Peter Robertson said.

Robbie described the memorial as a flagpole with a monument of polished granite stone surrounded by a picket fence.

Over a century later, it was all but forgotten until the search began on a small scale eight years ago.

Now, the Remembrance Army have a whole team determined to keep looking until the engraved piece of granite is finally unearthed.

“I think we've got to recognise what they did for us back then,” Ian Macdonald said.

The team attempted to use maps and GPS over the weekend to draw a direct line from the front windows of the family home - but to no avail.

"We're not going to give up. It could be five years' time, but we won't be giving up," Robbie said.

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