Bess, the best known of Kiwi War horses is commemorated in a private memorial near Bulls that has become a de facto memorial to all the New Zealand horses that served during the First World War.

In 2021 Bess was awarded the Blue Cross Award, similar to the memorial the award recognises all NZ War horses. Again, although not able to attend due to Covid – AWAMO staff not only nominated Bess but financed many materials and the event on the day behind the scenes.

Clutha Mackenzie was at the camp at Awapuni for a month before going to Wellington, & eventually the troops left after 3 weeks at Trentham racecourse, &; sailed on October 16th , a fleet of 10 transports & 2 cruisers.

From his Diary extracts: Oct 22nd – “What with fog horns sounding continually, the tramping of the horses with the heavy roll…..the falling of articles, nobody had much of a night’s sleep”. While on his ship men slept in cabins, on some of the transports there are horses on deck, horses in the between-decks-the upper deck of the hold-while the men had to sleep, eat & do everything on the deck below that. Oct 26th “Lost our first horse on this transport last night, though several have drifted past from other vessels”.

At Alban, west Australia, the NZ ships joined up with Australian forces to make a convoy of 40 ships, which reached Alexandria, Egypt on December 4th 1914. The horses arrived in splendid condition & were very happy to get ashore, kicking up their heels & neighing in delight. After leading them around for some time, the horses rolled in the sand, were watered, then shipped to Cairo by train. Busy days followed & the desert lost some of it’s charm in the work of leading the horses across it on foot until they were strong enough to be ridden again. It was hot, dusty work.

Dec 14th “The shoeing of the horses has just been finished & it is the first time we have ridden them. They are not quite used to strange sights & they shy at camels, mules & donkeys”. Dec 16th “In the afternoon had a most interesting ride down to the delta. The horses are very fit, shied at everything strange, & almost everything is strange -camels, some with regular haystacks of maize stalks on their backs & other weird loads, are their pet aversion. Water wheels driven by camels, donkeys or cattle, following around the same old circle, are objects of terror”. In Egypt Clutha made friends with Frisky Fitchett of the Waikato M.R.

May 8th This was a day of preparation for departure to Gallipoli. “Some busied themselves with final preparations; some glided silently away from the zone of flickering candle-light, towards the horse-lines to give a parting pat to their faithful horses, a sad farewell for many”.

Having arrived at Gallipoli on May 12th , he was involved in the battle at Chanak Bair, where he was blinded by a shell from a British war ship on August 8th . He was taken by hospital ship to Alexandria, then on to England. Once he had recovered, Clutha became editor of a newspaper printed in England every fortnight. Chronicles of the NZEF was primarily for wounded & ill soldiers in Britain. In the second edition he wrote a plea for the close ties forged at Gallipoli between New Zealanders & Australians not to be forgotten, & comments that a monument ought to be erected after the war to commemorate this. So it is interesting that he later became a model, mounted on Bess for the ANZAC memorial at Port Said.