Anzac Day approaches. I reflect on the five years my parents spent apart. Looking forward to getting Dad’s army records. Applied online via the New Zealand Defence Force – will have to wait six months for the record. World War One (WWI) centenary has sparked lots of interest in family members’ war service.
Archives New Zealand did a great job making all WWI service records available on Archway by 2015. Grew up with the story that Mum’s uncle had “paid the supreme sacrifice” in WWI. As a kid it took me a while to work out what that meant! Uncle Obe wasn’t easy to find on Archway or the fantastic Commonwealth War Grave site.
Finally tracked him down. Turns out Obadiah was his middle name and he’s recorded as plain John Fletcher – one of 378 officers and men of the New Zealand Division named on the The Buttes New British Cemetery Memorial in Belgium. They died in the Polygon Wood sector between September 1917 and May 1918, and have no known grave. Most died in the trenches, or working in winter conditions in the Salient – just one set attack on a German position.
If Dad hadn’t survived WWII, I wouldn’t be here. His ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ certificate has always been on the wall. He said he got it for “getting the mail through on time” and indeed all New Zealand troops in Italy got their mail in time for Christmas, 1944. Quite how this was achieved (we suspect the usual Kiwi ingenuity and ‘borrowing’ of vehicles) doesn’t make it into The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War. This 50 volume work is now freely available online.
This makes it much easier to find things like Mersa Matruth, the place engraved on the pair of shell cases that always sat on our mantelpiece. Interesting to see the fern winding its way up the shell through Egyptian images.
Once I get Dad’s records I must upload his profile to Cenotaph, Auckland War Memorial Museum’s “gathering point for the personal and official memory of people who served for New Zealand Aotearoa.” This is another resource anyone can access and add to for future generations.
I recall that Great Uncle Obe is recorded there so I lay a virtual poppy for him. I remember Great Uncle Alf on the other side of the family also served in WWI but came home. His record is on Cenotaph so he gets a virtual poppy too.
He has a soldier’s headstone with a fern in the Holy Trinity Graveyard in Christchurch. Pity there’s no church left to shelter it.
Kaye Lally, Age Hacker
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