Bright Ernest Williams, (27 February 1897 – 13 February 2003) was, at the time of his death, the last New Zealand World War I veteran out of the 100,444 New Zealanders to fight in that war. Williams was born the son of a blacksmith in Rissington, north of Napier. While a shepherd working on a farm in Hawke’s Bay, he increased his age by three years in order to enlist in the New Zealand Army on March 1916. By 1917, he was on the front lines in Belgium working as a runner with the 3rd Battalion New Zealand Rifle Brigade at Messines, before being severely wounded in the Battle of Passchendaele on 12 October 1917. As he and an officer tried to move forward in front of a German machine gun post at Wolf Farm, both were peppered by machine-gun bullets. The officer was killed, while Bright William