Mervyn Herbert Sweet elder son of C.H.E.Sweet [born in Little Berkhamstead, educated
at Sherbourne] of Mairenui, Mangaweka, was educated at Nelson College and as a twenty one year old joined the Wellington Mounted Rifles in 1914, taking his own horse, Jack, and saddle from the farm into camp. Sent to Alexandria and then to Gallipoli he was killed at Chanuk Bair on August 8th 1915. An account of his leaving is chronicled in the late Philip Holden's book, Riding Country, in the first story - All the Brave Horses. See below.
In Memory of
Trooper MERVYN HERBERT SWEET
11/140, Wellington Mounted Rifles, N.Z.E.F.
who died
on 09 August 1915
Son of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. E. Sweet, of Ruahine, Mangaweka.
Remembered with honour
CHUNUK BAIR ( NEW ZEALAND ) MEMORIAL
Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
In 2006 David Sweet, nephew of Trooper Mervyn Sweet joined the Rathkeale Community
to commemorate Anzac Day, held for the first time in St Martin's on the Close, where he shared his uncle's story with the pupils and staff. David Sweet, and his wife Sue, also donated a photo of his uncle, which is now displayed in the sanctuary of the church. Matthew Sweet, son of David and Sue Sweet, attended Rathkeale College from 1984-1988.In April 2008, Matthew Sweet returned to Rathkeale to attend his class reunion. This included a visit to St Martin's on the Close where the Chaplain, Mr Ray Coats, gave the past pupils a brief history of St Martins and its journey from Mangaweka to Masterton. The significance of the memorials commemorating our St Martin's servicemen was shared with the group of past pupils.
An excerpt from 'Riding Country' by Phillip Holden
In August 1914, Great Britain declared war on Germany and her far-flung allies responded at once to the urgent call for fighting men. All over New Zealand men flocked to enlist. Soon, big military camps were established in many parts of the country, including one at the Awapuni Racecourse in Palmerston North. On 8th August, the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment was formed from the three Territorial regiments in the district. One of these was the sixth Manawatu Squadron, based at Palmerston North. The army wanted men who could ride, and who could provide their own mount. Given his rural background, Mervyn Sweet, 6 feet or 1.82 metres tall and hill-country lean, fitted the bill perfectly. Moreover, he was keen to enlist. He saddled his favourite stockhorse, a big bay gelding called Jack, said goodbye to his folks and headed off down Ruahine Road en route to Palmerston North. In an early letter home, he would say that 'Jack was doing well'.
The Wellington Mounted Rifles had a total personnel of 549 men. There were 528 riding horses, 74 draughthorses and 6 packhorses. In the Mounted Rifles Brigade, made up of the Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington regiments, there were 2432 men and 3818 horses.
Young Trooper Mervyn Sweet, good son that he was, wrote home often from Awapuni. He explained that they spent a lot of time drilling and looking after their horses. Once they held a big parade in the square of Palmerston North. Later, he wrote that he was sending his saddle and some spare clothing home to his brother. (Geoffrey) Mervyn had, of course, been issued with a British military saddle - a light weight affair, with very little padding. Even so, these saddles found favour with most troopers.
Trooper Mervyn Sweet and Jack sailed out of Wellington on the 16th October 1914, on the Orari, one of fourteen ships in a convoy carrying the Main Body of the Expeditionary Force. 'There are about two hundred horses on this boat,' he would write. On leaving the capital the men had been given a magnificent farewell. '
A similar scenario had been enacted a mere fifteen years before when the First Contingent of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles had departed Wellington on the SS Waiwera. The men numbered 214; their horses 252. They, too, were off to fight for the Old Country - in South Africa. A year after they arrived in Cape Town, on the 23rd November 1899, only 20 horses were left alive. Between 1899 and 1902 more than 8000 New Zealand horses were sent to South Africa; at the war's end only one horse, Major, twice wounded in action, would return home. Given the secrecy that then covered all military operations, it is highly unlikely that Trooper Mervyn Sweet, or any of his comrades, were aware of such horrendous figures.
The Orari took a good seven weeks to reach the point of disembarkment at Alexandria in Egypt. At sea, Mervyn wrote, the horses were hosed down regularly. Fourteen horses died on the Orari and were buried at sea but none of them were under the care of Mervyn or his mates. "Our horses came off the boat in very good condition. A lot of them don't like the camels and donkeys and there are a lot of other things they have not seen before." Later on: 'Our horses are doing fairly well and we are feeding them barley and straw mashed and crushed barley and hay at night'. Often his mind was on how things were at home: 'hoping you and the dogs and all the animals are alright'.
In early April 1915, Trooper Sweet was camped with his regiment at Zeitoun on the edge of the Sahara Desert. He was not allowed to say what fighting he had so far been involved in. He did, however, mention that, to offset the heat and ticks, the horses had been clipped.During the South African War, too, ticks had been a nasty problem and each morning the troopers had to scrape handfuls of them off the bellies of their mounts. By the end of April Mervyn was in the Dardanelles.
Like most men of this period, Mervyn smoked. In his last letter to each New Zealand, he thanked a Mrs Boyd from Nelson who had sent tabacco to the boys overseas. On the 9th of August Trooper Mervyn Sweet was reported missing on the Gallipoli Peninsula. His body was not recovered and it was considered he had been killed in action on this date. Horses were not required at Gallipoli (except by some officers) so Jack and the rest of the horses had been left behind in caring hands when the troopers of the Wellington Mounted Rifles fought alongside the infantry. And so a big bay gelding named Jack passed into someone else's hands. From the time the family was given official notification that Mervyn was dead, his name was hardly ever mentioned again. The grief lasted the rest of their lives.
Mervyn's brother Lac, father of David Sweet, also enlisted in the Wellington Mounted Rifles, after the death of his older brother. He sailed to Egypt in 1916, served until the end of the war and then stayed in on peace-keeping duties until 1919.
It has been said before that the real hero of the desert campaigns in Sinai, Palestine and Egypt was the New Zealand horse. During the advance on Palestine in 1917, for example, the animals endured seventy two hours without water on a daily food allowance of twelve pounds of barley, while carrying three days' rations plus their riders and a great deal of assorted equipment. During this and other long marches the horses became so weary that, whenever a short break was taken, they would flop to the ground to lie alongside their equally exhausted masters. They would then go on again, into the heat and the dust.
Always their horses came first with the men. As Trooper Ted McKay of the Auckland Mounted Rifles wrote, 'We loved our horses with a feeling that went deeply into our beings. They were more than mounts to shift us from spot to spot- they were cobbers.' When one such cobber named Mary, was killed in action in May 1918, her resting place was marked by the words of an unknown trooper: 'No gift have we to bring except this wooden cross, to stick here in the mud, above our sergeant's horse.'
When it was time for the peacekeeping force to return to New Zealand the powers that be were faced with a massive problem: what to do with the three thousand horses that remained alive. Taking them all home was judged too difficult and expensive, so the better mounts were given to the British cavalry. The rest - conveniently classed as unfit, too sick or too old - were sentenced to be shot rather than fall into Egyptian or Arab civilian hands. Accordingly, troopers like Lac Sweet and his mates were given their dreadful orders: to shoot their horses.
Much later, Lac Sweet, who rarely talked about the Great War to his son, and almost never mentioned his oldest brother, would say they would shoot up to three hundred horses a day until it was all over. By then the sky was black with kites and the stench was unbearable. No one wanted to talk about such things when they returned home. They simply wanted to forget the fate of so many of New Zealand's brave horses that had given their all for king and country.
It has been estimated that between 1914 and 1918 a total of 10,230 New Zealand horses took part in the war. Some of them, classed as remounts, were rounded up from the huge herds of feral horses in the central North Island, taken to Trentham Military Camp outside, quickly broken in and then shipped out. Of this overall number only two horses came back to New Zealand.
Riding Country: On Horseback In New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand ) Limited.2001
The original homestead area on Mairenui, where the Sweet family lived at the time of the First World War. The stables are to the right.