THE 92nd anniversary of a tragic railway accident involving New Zealand soldiers at Bere Ferrers Station will be marked by village residents and members of the British Legion next week.

This event, on Thursday September 24, is taking place as a result of a request from the New Zealand Army Museum in Waiouru to identify New Zealand servicemen who are buried in Devon and Cornwall.

In his research, the county chairman, Brian Cumming, learned about this terrible accident that cost the lives of ten young New Zealanders, keen volunteers to a man, before they had a chance to do their duty for King and Country.

The soldiers, members of the 28th Reinforcements, comprising various units, had just arrived in Plymouth, having left New Zealand in July 1917. They were on their way by train to Sling Camp, Salisbury Plain when the accident happened.

The first scheduled stop was Exeter, where refreshments were to be obtained, but the train made an unscheduled stop at the Bere Ferrers signals and the men, not knowing where they were, assumed Exeter had been reached.

Some of the men were alighting when the down express from Waterloo to Plymouth came through on the other track, killing seven of the soldiers outright and badly injuring three others, who later died in hospital.

The ceremony at Bere Ferrers War Memorial will take place at 3.20pm. It will be led by the Rev Nick Law, vicar of St Andrew's Church, in the presence of the Royal British Legion County Chairman and the Military Advisor to the New Zealand High Commissioner in London. Wreaths will be laid at the foot of the memorial at precisely 3.34pm, the time when the accident happened.