The names on the Kaiparoro bridge (2)

The fourth name under 1914-1918 on the memorial plaque (and top left on the outside) is that of D.K. Pallant.

Donald Kelway Pallant  was born on 4 April 1892 to Arthur and Margaret Pallant of Eketahuna. He studied at Victoria University College and was appointed sole teacher at Marima school near Pahiatua in July 1913. He enlisted on 13 August 1914 with the Wellington Infantry Battalion. Donald Pallant was reported missing on 8 May 1915, aged 23. A Board of Enquiry in January 1916 decided he was “now believed to be dead”. He is buried in an unknown grave in Gallipoli, Turkey, and his name is on the  Twelve Tree Copse (New Zealand) Memorial, Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery. 

This is Donald Pallant's entry on Auckland War Memorial Museum's Online cenotaph database, with this handsome photograph. 

Portrait, Auckland Weekly News 1915 - No known copyright restrictions

I followed Donald Pallant's life from training to teaching to war on Papers Past, firstly in the Wairarapa Age of 9 July 1912

The Wairarapa Daily Times of 3 July 1913 reported that "Mr Donald Pallant, of Kakariki, has been appointed sole teacher at the Marima School."

On 28 June 1915, the Otago Daily Times reported that he was missing: 

And his name was read out at a memorial service in August 1917 in honour of the Victoria University College men who had fallen in the war.

Donald Pallant was the nephew of Alfred Falkner who designed the Kaiparoro bridge. 

Kaiparoro war memorial bridge

This is Kaiparoro war memorial bridge. You might have driven past it on SH 2, just north of Masterton, past Pukaha Mt Bruce. You wouldn't have driven over it, because the road was diverted some years ago.

Photo: Sue Pearce

You can read more about the bridge here on Te ara. The entry says about the bridge says that it was "designed and the construction supervised by Alfred Falkner, whose son Victor and nephew Donald Pallant were among those remembered. The memorial bridge was built of stone from the nearby Makākahi River, and opened in 1922." 

It's a very special  bridge to the local community and the Friends of ANZAC Bridge have done a great job of restoring and caring for it. In fact, this year is the 10th anniversary of their formation to save "what was once a 'neglected and forgotten' structure in the middle of a cow paddock." You can read more about their work here. 

Friends of ANZAC Bridge Committee 2016. PHOTO/EVIE DEWES

I knew about the bridge already (we included a photo of it in the section on war memorials in my book on the history of Anzac Day), and I loved the idea of an Anzac project based around it. 

But what could that project be?

Well, I thought - how about finding another bridge community to link up to, either here in New Zealand or overseas. That would be easy, surely? There must be lots of World War One memorial bridges. 

But it turned out that there aren't so many at all, and that makes the Kaiparoro bridge even more special.