To 94-year-old John Cooke, the Olympics have always stirred a feeling of immense pride, tinged with great sadness.
In 1932, his brother George Cooke marched under the New Zealand flag at the Los Angeles games, a member of a rowing eight crew who helped to lay the foundations of a proud Kiwi legacy in the sport. George returned home, regaling his younger brother with stories of his time at the greatest sporting festival in the world, and his crew’s disappointment at failing to achieve what they had aimed for. The next time George left New Zealand marching beneath his country’s flag, he did not come home. On May 23, 1941, a corporal in the New Zealand infantry during the Battle of Crete in World War II, George Cooke was killed in action.
His mother never got over it, John Cooke recalled last week.Almost 1000 young New Zealand men lost their lives fighting the German occupation of Greece and Crete.
Next week, another wave of young New Zealanders - 151 Olympians as proud of their country as George Cooke was 72 years ago - will descend on Greece.
But this time, their pursuits are entirely peaceful, the only battles in the realms of sporting competition.
As the New Zealand team prepare to head for Athens, chef de mission Dave Currie believes it is important that his young charges commemorate the wartime sacrifice in Greece.The team arranged a ceremony at the Athens Memorial in Phaleron where 232 New Zealanders are buried and a further 479 are named in remembrance.
“I think it’s very important for young New Zealanders to be aware of the sacrifice that has been made,” said Mr Currie. “Once we started down the path of arranging the ceremony, one thing led to another.” They discovered that one of the 479 New Zealanders named on the memorial was George Cooke, Olympian.
Out of the blue, John Cooke got a letter at his home on the Kapiti Coast from the New Zealand Olympic Committee telling him about the plans for the ceremony and, in particular, that the team intended to honour his brother George.“It was a big surprise,” said John Cooke. “It has made us immensely proud.” The commemoration has, of course, stirred memories of his brother. “He was a great sportsman, a three-time rowing champion. He played rugby too.” In 1939, George left his job as a clerk and enlisted, heading to war aged 34. “As we had grown up, we had become great mates,” said John Cooke. “He would have been 98 if he was still alive.”
He would love to be there for the ceremony on Tuesday, but is unable to make the journey. The family will instead be represented by two of George’s nephews, Alastair and Malcolm Grant. For Alastair, who served in Vietnam, it has reminded him of the terrible loss of war. “I think of the useless waste of young men.”
NZ Herald, August 2004.