"In a shady spot in the graveyard of Trentham’s St John’s Anglican Church, is a beautifully ornate headstone, bearing a harrowing story of the cost of war for one Upper Hutt family. Two brothers who appear to have died on the Western Front a day apart, but in reality, were struck down at the same time.
David and Andrew Costin were born two years apart in Horwich, Lancashire, England in the early 1890s. Their father Thomas a coach painter and mother Mary had established a loving family with three sons. Sadly, the youngest, named Thomas after his father, passed away aged five in 1904 while the family were living in Bolton, Greater Manchester.
The family emigrated to New Zealand shortly afterwards and were living in Wellington in 1911. For reasons which are unclear, they returned to England via Brisbane in May 1913, indicating an intention to remain there permanently. But the family were back in Wellington the following year, perhaps due to the growing tensions in Europe at the time.
David was living with his family in Heretaunga and working as an Engineer for A. Hatrick & Co., when the War broke out. He had joined the Signal Section of the 5th Wellington Regiment, a Territorial Force unit, but when volunteering for service overseas in November 1915, had been rejected on medical grounds.
However, he was later conscripted in October 1916, and ordered to parade with a draft of men in front of the Defence Headquarters in Buckle Street, Wellington. The group of 188 men was then marched to the Railway station on route to Trentham Camp, without the remaining 12 draftees who had refused to show up.
After five months training at Trentham, David departed New Zealand on a convoy out of Wellington on 2 April 1917, as a member of the Signals Section, Specialists Company 23rd Reinforcements. On arrival in England in June he was posted to Sling Camp for three months training, qualifying as a 1st Class Signaller on 5 September 2017.
His younger brother Andrew had also enlisted during this time. Living in Heretaunga with his family, Andrew was initially working as a Mercer for W. Hernig & Co. However, he enlisted as a Territorial Force member of the 5th Wellington Regiment, before attesting for overseas service with the Army on 23 February 2017.
Also training at Trentham, Andrew managed to spend time with his brother David in camp and his family at Heretaunga. He was similarly a member of the Signals Section, Specialists Company, but with the 28th Reinforcements, and departed New Zealand on 26 July 1917. By the time Andrew arrived at Sling Camp on 24 September his brother had already departed.
The day after gaining his 1st Class Signaller qualification David was shipped to France on 6 September 1917. He immediately went into training in the infamous ‘Bullring’ at Étaples, on the day of a massive mutiny, sparked by the arrest of a New Zealand gunner and the response of the New Zealanders in garrison.
But it was mainly the British mutineers who were punished, including one who was executed. After six weeks training in the Reinforcements camp, David was finally posted to his unit in the field on 24 October 1917. He had thankfully just missed the horror of the battles at Passchendaele.
Joining the 8th (Southland) Company of the 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, David served as a Regimental Signaller. Infantrymen who had trained as signallers, as opposed to the Divisional Signallers of the New Zealand Engineers, these soldiers were response for maintaining communications from their Company Commanders to the Battalion Headquarters.
Andrew arrived at Étaples on 29 October, having missed his brother by just five days. But they were soon reunited, as after completing the ‘Bullring’ training Andrew found himself also posted as a Regimental Signaller with 8th (Southland) Company of the 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, on 11 November 1918. There to help reinforce a unit which had lost 40 percent of its strength at Passchendaele.
By a stroke of luck, the brothers therefore found themselves members of the same small detachment of signallers, within a frontline New Zealand unit on the marshy Polygon Wood sector of the Western Front, close to the Menin Road in Belgium. They also participated in their first major action together.
The New Zealanders attempted to storm the German stronghold at Polderhoek, built from the ruins of an old Chateau, on 3 December 1917. The 1st Otago Battalion was one of two units selected to lead the attack, but the atrocious winter weather had turned the approaches into a quagmire. Friendly artillery falling amongst the first wave then blunted the attack, which failed miserably.
David and Andrew fell back with their wounded Company Commander Lieutenant McAuley, and the other survivors of their Company. Half the men from the two leading New Zealand Battalions involved in the attack were killed or wounded. The two brothers had been extremely lucky to make it through unscathed. But sadly, this luck wouldn’t hold out.
Eight days later the pair were in a bivvy dug within the Polygon Wood, when they came under enemy artillery fire. One shell landed almost directly on them blowing the structure in. David was killed instantly and Andrew seriously injured. Quickly evacuated via No.3 New Zealand Field Ambulance to No. 2 Canadian Casualty Clearing station, he succumbed to his wounds the following day.
Having grown up together and served together, the two brothers were killed by the same shell, but sadly buried apart. Andrew in the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetry, Poperinge. While David, without an identified grave, is commemorated on a memorial panel at the Buttes New British Cemetery, Zonnebeke. The brothers had not married and there were no descendants.
Three years later when their Father Thomas died aged just 54, their Mother Mary included a memorial to her two sons buried in Belgium, along with that to her husband on his headstone. When the lonely widow passed away twenty years later, she was buried in the same plot at St John’s, under an epitaph which sadly captures the horrible cost of war for this one Upper Hutt family."
[Upper Hurr War Stories, retrieved 13 December 2021]
