The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, met Anna Jane Vea of Tonga while New Zealand commemorated the Battle of the Somme in Longueval, France, last week.

Vea was among the young people from New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, who were in France to learn more about their countries’ participation in the Battle of the Somme during World War I.

Prince Charles attended the wreath-laying at the New Zealand Battlefield Memorial at the Caterpillar Valley War Cemetery on Thursday last week.

“The Battle of the Somme was New Zealand’s first major engagement on the Western Front.

“Of the 15,000 members of the New Zealand Division, 8000 were wounded and 2111 soldiers were killed.

“The New Zealand Memorial to the Missing in Caterpillar Valley cemetery lists 1205 names of New Zealanders without marked graves.

“New Zealand’s Unknown Warrior was exhumed from this cemetery and reinterred at the National War Memorial in 2004”.

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