Missing Kiwi WWI soldier finally gets French memorial

A 30-year labour of love has finally paid off for the family of a New Zealand soldier killed in World War I.

It's taken a long time to arrange a memorial for Frederick George Rickard, but now in the heart of a tiny village in northern France his memory will not be lost with his body, beneath the battlefields of 100 years ago.

A century from his death - to the day - Mr Rickard, a farmer from a small New Zealand town, is being remembered.

"It is the closest we will ever get to Fred," historian Roger Stuart-Andrews says.

Mr Rickard was from Hakatere near Ashburton. He travelled half-way around the world and joined a British regiment.

He died at Gonnelieu just months before his 40th birthday in a war he did not have to fight.

"He was too old at the time for the draft, he was also the oldest son of widow and oldest sons of widows were not conscripted in NZ and also farmers were a protected occupation," Mr Stuart-Andrews says.

For him, this moment - this monument - is the culmination of 30 years of work to properly honour his great-uncle.

Frederick Rickard's memorial (Newshub)
Frederick Rickard's memorial (Newshub)

Mr Rickard's family came from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom to learn about the final moments of his life - and ensure it's never forgotten.

"He was here and he lies out here somewhere in these fields because he hasn't been found yet; hopefully one day he will be," Mr Stuart-Andrews says.

Like much of the countryside in northern France, the battlefield is now both farm land and burial.

In 2001, the bodies of 20 soldiers from Mr Rickard's regiment were discovered.

Mr Rickard has no grave - his name is one of 72,000 marked at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.

But it's 40 kilometres from where he died in Gonnelieu.

"If Gonnelieu remember him and our generations have somewhere to come - your children, grandchildren, my grandchildren have a place to come then in a sense he lives on, he's remembered," Mr Stuart-Andrews says.

That place is alongside the slaughtered soldiers of Gonnelieu whose village Mr Rickard died trying to protect.

Newshub.