Honoured in France, now remembered at home
A New Zealand hero lies buried in France. Tomorrow he is remembered on the land his father left to all New Zealanders. By Peter Kitchin.
AWELLINGTON property magnate’s last wishes will be fulfilled tomorrow, 43 years after he died. James Stellin, a well-heeled valuer who went on to develop Strathmore Park, Avalon and Kingston, and who built Casa Loma, his splendid residence at Melling, has all but vanished from the city’s radar. Much like his only son, James Jr. In fact, James Jr, born at Lyall Bay, has been better known in the rural French village of Saint-Maclou-la-Briere, Haute-Normandie. Annually, for 52 years, the village has honoured his memory on August 19. He is, says the town’s record, ‘‘our hero’’.
In Stellin’s home town, his heroism has rarely surfaced in Wellington’s collective memory. Apart from Stellin Memorial Park in Northland, a listing on the defunct Kilbirnie RSA’s honours board — now at Scots College — and foyer mementos at the school, there’s little trace of the young pilot who saved a town.
Stellin is a hero in Saint Maclou-laBriere because of the selfless act that cost him his life on Saturday, August 19, 1944. His sacrifice will also be honoured publicly in his home town tomorrow.
It would be fair to say that beyond his distraught family, the significance of his action barely rated a mention in Wellington. He was, after all, just one of 4000 New Zealand air crew killed in World War II.
The French villagers had good reason to honour him. As they watched his stricken RAF Typhoon warplane head for the village it suddenly veered away and climbed sharply to the left, where Stellin bailed out. The plane then plunged about 400 metres to the ground more than a kilometre away.
Stellin’s parachute failed to open at the low altitude. He smashed into an apple tree and was killed. He was just 22 years old.
His death rated a mention in Wellington’s newspapers, though his father had bigger ideas. James Jr had been a clerk in his father’s business, and was heir to substantial holdings. He had attended Scots College at Strathmore Park, and his dad made substantial gifts to the school.
Stellin Sr, a man of means, had bigger ideas to honour his son. Apart from his housing developments, he also owned a substantial piece of ground high on the southeastern slope of Tinakori Hill.
When he died on April 4, 1964, his will made provision for the Tinakori site to be given to the city as a memorial to his son, and it included a bequest of £2000 to build a lookout and install a plaque on the highest boundary, off Orangi Kaupapa Rd.
The creation of Stellin Memorial Park, today largely covered in scrub but threaded by popular walking tracks, is all that remains of the Stellin family’s bequest. It almost didn’t fulfil the benefactor’s stated wish.
When the urban motorway project in the 1960s forced the United States ambassador to find new digs, the city council persuaded Stellin family survivors to agree to a bill of Parliament that would amend the family trust’s obligations and allow the ambassador to build a new residence on the site of the park.
There was hue and cry, and the council’s plans, and objections to them, were aired in The Evening Post. The plan was shelved, and the ambassador found new premises at Woburn Rd, Lower Hutt.
Wellington City Council finally built the lookout in 1977, 13 years after Wellingtonians were gifted the block.
In June last year, the council remedied an unfulfilled element of the bequest, and agreed that the plaque be installed.
Stellin Jr’s exploits and last moments will be aired tomorrow at the park that bears his name.
Much of the information is drawn from Saint-Maclou-la-Briere, which has a substantial and unshakeable record.
By the time villagers got to the wreck, a German Army unit was already examining it. Stellin was lying facedown nearby, and an officer was turning over the broken body with his boot.
As an officer examined Stellin’s documents, a villager noted the pilot’s identity and serial number as a colleague asked what the Germans had in mind for the body. The officer said they could do what they liked with it.
The villagers were appalled and thankful. In a letter to Stellin’s parents in Wellington, received a year after their son died, a village spokesman described how Stellin had been wrapped in a white sheet, while the local cabinet maker built an oak coffin. The casket was draped in the commune’s flag before it was covered in flowers.
After a Catholic funeral, the village of 350 marched to their cemetery with another 850 people from the surrounding countryside. Among them was a US serviceman being hidden from Germans by neighbours.
Stellin’s effects were consigned to the Red Cross. His remains are still at SaintMaclou-la-Briere. The village added his name to a memorial for French dead from the district. Later, they built a separate memorial in his name, and in 2001 changed the name of the main square to Place Stellin.
Speakers tomorrow include French ambassador Michel Legas, Mayor Kerry Prendergast, an RSA representative, and Stellin Park historian John Bickerton.
Stellin Memorial Park ceremony, opposite 115 Orangi Kaupapa Rd, Northland, Sunday, August 19, 10.30am.