On this day 100 years ago, 19 December 1917, Lance Sergeant Harold Arthur Johnston of the 3rd Battalion, 4th NZ Brigade NZEF was killed holding and improving the front line around the Polygon Wood area. He was the son of Mr and Mrs A Johnston of 34 London Street, Richmond, Christchurch, New Zealand.

On 12 October 2017, to commemorate the Third Battle of Ypres (The Battle of Passchendaele) and NZ's darkest day, we lay a flax cross and poppy at his gravestone in the Buttes New British Cemetery. The local Zonnebeke community has remembered Harold by planting a tree in his honour in the newly created Wood of Peace to commemorate the centenary of the WWI battles in Flanders Fields.

Mike Dougan