Turnbull Thomson Park , Peace Pitch, 199 Islington Street, Invercargill, 9810, New Zealan is twinned with Flanders Peace Field, Mesen, Belgium, site of the First World War 1914 Christmas Truces.
New Zealand’s first ever peace pitch is twinned the Peace, Flanders, Mesen, Belgium, site of the First World War, 1914, Christmas truces. Next door to the Peace Pitch, Mesen, you will find the New Zealand War Memorial. The total number of New Zealand troops and nurses to serve overseas in 1914–18, excluding those in British and other forces, was 100,444, from a population of just over a million. Forty-two percent of men of military age served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, fighting in the Gallipoli campaign and on the Western Front. 16,697 New Zealanders were killed and 41,317 were wounded during the war – a 58 percent casualty rate. Approximately a further thousand men died within five years of the war’s end, as a result of injuries sustained, and 507 died while training in New Zealand between 1914 and 1918.
