{"id":224373,"date":"2026-01-09T03:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224373\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T03:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:47:08","slug":"national-war-memorial-targeted-by-thieves-letters-from-metal-sign-prised-off-concrete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224373\/","title":{"rendered":"National War Memorial targeted by thieves, letters from metal sign prised off concrete"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"vUWuwjCGukMuO\" style=\"display:none\">The thefts were \u201cunacceptable\u201d and the ministry was \u201cbitterly disappointed that someone has gone to some effort to steal from the fallen\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Thieves removed metal letters from this sign and others at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park. Photo \/ Facebook \/ Ministry for Culture and Heritage\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Thieves removed metal letters from this sign and others at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park. Photo \/ Facebook \/ Ministry for Culture and Heritage<img  alt=\"An archival photo showing the Pukeahu National War Memorial sign before it was damaged. \" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>An archival photo showing the Pukeahu National War Memorial sign before it was damaged. <\/p>\n<p class=\"vUWuwjCGukMuO\" style=\"display:none\">The memorial Le Calligramme, gifted by the French Government in 2016 to commemorate the bonds forged between New Zealand and France during World War I, sustained substantial damage, with all its lettering picked off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vUWuwjCGukMuO\" style=\"display:none\">Images showed exposed screws where the proverb \u201chaere whakamua, titiro whakamuri\u201d had previously been affixed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vUWuwjCGukMuO\" style=\"display:none\">The French Embassy condemned the vandalism, saying it \u201cundermines the memory of the New Zealand soldiers who fell in France for our freedom\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"vUWuwjCGukMuO\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe thank New Zealand\u2019s authorities for their investigations and the preparatory work that will lead to the repair of this important monument for our common heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The Ministry for Culture and Heritage is seeking the public's help after thieves stole metal pieces of signage from monuments at a Wellington park. Photo \/ Facebook \/ Ministry for Culture and Heritage\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The Ministry for Culture and Heritage is seeking the public&#8217;s help after thieves stole metal pieces of signage from monuments at a Wellington park. Photo \/ Facebook \/ Ministry for Culture and Heritage<\/p>\n<p class=\"vUWuwjCGukMuO\" style=\"display:none\">The ministry is appealing for anyone who has information about the thefts, believed to have occurred between Christmas Eve and Monday this week, or who knows the whereabouts of the missing letters, to contact Wellington police.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vUWuwjCGukMuO\" style=\"display:none\">Philip-Barbara said the ministry would \u201cstart to consider the reparatory works to memorial and signage\u201d and keep the French Embassy and stakeholders updated in the meantime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The thefts were \u201cunacceptable\u201d and the ministry was \u201cbitterly disappointed that someone has gone to some effort to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3595,134317,1770,690,49479,71,305,1019,29546,19872,1614,63517,3556,111,43,139,69,6662,8143,134316,7806,5652,34703,1458,66960,107200,6149,96403,2963],"class_list":["post-224373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-by","tag-commemorating","tag-concrete","tag-dead","tag-donated","tag-from","tag-have","tag-international","tag-letters","tag-memorial","tag-metal","tag-monument","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-off","tag-park","tag-prised","tag-sign","tag-signs","tag-stripped","tag-targeted","tag-thieves","tag-vandals","tag-war","tag-wrecked","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}