Flagstaff War - Battle of Ohaeawai

Battle of Ohaeawai

A debate occurred between Kawiti and the Ngatirangi chief Pene Taui as to the site of the next battle; Kawiti eventually agreed to the request to fortify Pene Taui’s Pā at Ohaeawai.

Although it was now the middle of the southern winter, Lieutenant Colonel Despard insisted on resuming the campaign immediately with troops from the 58th and 99th Regiments, naval marines and a detachment of artillery they sailed across the bay to the mouth of the Kerikeri River and began to march inland to Ohaeawai where Kawiti had built formidable defences around Pene Taui's Pā; the inner palisade, 3 metres (9.8 ft) high, was built using Puriri logs. In front of the inner palisade was a ditch in which the warriors could shelter and reload their muskets then fire through gaps in the two outer palisades. The conditions were atrocious: continual rain and wind on wet and sticky mud. It was several days before the entire expedition was gathered at the Waimate Mission by which time Despard was apoplectic, so much so that when Tāmati Wāka Nene arrived with 250 men, Despard said that if he had wanted the assistance of savages he would have asked for it. Fortunately the interpreter delivered a completely different message.

The British troops arrived before the Ohaeawai Pā on 23 June and established a camp about 500 metres (1,600 ft) away. On the summit of a nearby hill (Puketapu) they built a four gun battery. They opened fire next day and continued until dark but did very little damage to the palisade. The next day the guns were brought to within 200 metres (660 ft) of the pā. The bombardment continued for another two days but still did very little damage. Partly this was due to the elasticity of the flax covering the palisade but the main fault was a failure to concentrate the cannon fire on one area of the defences.

After two days of bombardment without effecting a breach, Despard ordered a frontal assault. He was, with difficulty, persuaded to postpone this pending the arrival of a 32 pound naval gun which came the next day, 1 July. However an unexpected sortie from the pā caused great alarm and further infuriated Despard. He ordered an attack the same day. This caused consternation among the Māori allies and indeed among the Māori defenders of the pā who tried to persuade the British soldiery to retreat and not persist in such a suicidal attack.

The British persisted in their attempts to storm the unbreached palisades and five to seven minutes later 33 were dead and 66 injured.

Shaken by his losses, Despard decided to abandon the siege. However, his Māori allies contested this. Tāmati Wāka Nene persuaded Despard to wait for a few more days. More ammunition and supplies were brought in and the shelling continued. On the morning of 8 July the pā was found to have been abandoned, the enemy having disappeared in the night. When they had a chance to examine it the British officers found it to be even stronger than they had feared. It was duly destroyed and the British retreated once again to the Bay of Islands. Te Ruki Kawiti and his warriors escaped, Hone Heke recovered from his wounds, and a new and even stronger pā was built at Ruapekapeka.

The Battle of Ohaeawai was presented a victory for the British force, notwithstanding the death of about a third of the soldiers. The reality of the end of the Battle of Ohaeawai was that Te Ruki Kawiti and his warriors had abandoned the pā in a tactical withdrawal; with the Ngāpuhi moving on to build the Ruapekapeka Pā from which to engage the British force on a battle field chosen by Te Ruki Kawiti.

An account of the battle is provided by the Rev. Richard Davis, who was living at the CMS mission at Waimate and visited the pā during the siege; as a consequence of which Despard complained as to interference by the missionary in the action against Hone Heke. The Rev. Richard Davis commented on the siege that, "he, natives, I know, are capable of taking care of themselves. It was a happy thing for the troops, that they did not succeed in getting into the Pa. Had they accomplished their object, from the construction of the Pa the poor fellows must all have fallen. It was a sad sacrifice as it was of human life, and ought not to have been made. The Commander-in-chief had every opportunity of viewing the interior of the fort from the heights only about 500 yards distant. People's mouths were opened rather largely on the subject. The bravery of the poor fellows who made the attack was beyond all praise; but the wisdom of their commander has been questioned. To judge of this I leave to wiser heads than mine."