The New Zealanders surged up the scaling ladders and over the top into the dawn mist.
In November 2004, a soldier from the Western Front was chosen to symbolise all New Zealand's military heritage, underlining the way that our experience in Belgium and France between 1916 and 1918 speaks to us over the years and generations.
Why did so many New Zealanders sail from the 'uttermost ends of the Earth' to die in muddy foreign soil? And were the tactics really as mindless as climbing out of a trench and walking very slowly towards the Germans until everyone was dead?