The Tunnellers were always at work in Belgium and in France many months after the signing of the Armistice. The return of the company was officially authorized in January 1919. The quiet and long journey finally began for the men.
Time had come for all the Tunnellers to come back home. In December 1918, the company moved around Mons, taking construction of a concrete and steel railway bridge at Lourches, between Douai and Valenciennes, in France. The Lieutenant James Campbell Neill and his section, the No.4, worked on draining of an inundation caused by the German blowing up some viaducts at Spiennes, in Belgium. Everybody waited for the demobilization order.
On the 28th December all remaining men of the 1914-1915 classes were despatched to the base for demobilization.
At last on the 22nd January, 1919, all stores and equipments were handed over and the unit entrained at Mons for Le Havre ... the train crawled along, through Douai, Arras of the many memories, St. Pol and finally Etaples.
A very short night, for 2 a.m. the next morning "Reveille" once more and by 3 a.m. all were again in trucks for Le Havre.
On the 29th the Company embarked aboard s.s. Lydia, arriving at Weymouth next morning, and thence by train to camp at the New Zealand Depot at Larkhill on Salisbury Plains.
It was not till the 14th March that the Company as a unit under the command of Captain Daldy, embarked on s.s. Ionic for the final journey. All ranks had a fortnight's leave to bid farewell to the many friends they had made in the United Kingdom.
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A pleasant uneventful voyage via the Panama Canal ended when the s.s. Ionic dropped anchor in Auckland Harbour at 9 p.m. on April 23rd, 1919, and next day the New Zealand Tunnelling Company had ceased to exist.
Scattered as they now are, in mine, railway and the bush, wherever the life is roughest and work hardest and most dangerous, the spirit of the Company lives on in them, that spirit which counted self as nothing while the job and the honour of the Company were all in all.
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