Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board has completed a significant upgrade to the Waikaraka Cemetery Veterans’ Memorial in Alfred Street, Onehunga.
Local board chair Simon Randall says the upgrade was a priority ahead of this year’s Anzac commemorations, and he thanks Auckland Council’s WW100 Political Steering Group for their contribution.
The monument – originally designed by Auckland architect Norman Wade – features a semi-circular granite and concrete wall, and a central obelisk. At the ends are striking statues of a soldier and a sailor, and at the centre is a marble tablet with the text: “To commemorate the names of the veterans who fought in defence of the Empire and died at the Auckland Veterans’ Home.”
The memorial was originally completed and unveiled in 1917 to commemorate the veterans buried there.
Waikaraka Cemetery is an important war cemetery, at which many veterans from New Zealand’s overseas military commitments are interred, including 41 servicemen who were killed on active duty in the First World War and 11 killed during the Second World War.
