On the 5th of August 1914, New Zealand declared war on Imperial Germany, with the first men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) known as the “Main Body”, leaving Wellington in October 1914, headed for what was then called the “European War”. In later years, this conflict would be known as "The Great War" .... and then as World War 1.
On the way over, the NZEF Main Body, stopped to team up with their Australian colleagues only to be diverted to Egypt, to wait and train for future battlefields still unknown.
Around this time, my Grandfather George McLaren (1887 - 1962) was working as a luggage porter for NZ Railways in the small rural town of Tuakau, just 60km’s south of Auckland. He had been transferred there in February 1914 from the Clinton Railway Station which was at the far end of South Island and much closer to where he came from in Goodwood, Otago. It was here in Tuakau on the 15th of February 1915 that George would volunteer and enlist in the NZ Army (there was no conscription in NZ as yet).
Where you volunteered generally dictated which "Regiment" you'd join. In George's case, he entered into the Auckland Regiment of the the NZEF’s 5th Reinforcement draft. George would be placed in the 3rd (Auckland) Company of the 1st Auckland Infantry Battalion after training.
His first letter home on the 21st of February 1915 from Trentham Military Camp in Wellington was to his mother Isabella, still living on the family farm in Goodwood. George told his mother his reason for enlisting was not for King or Country, but for the adventure with his mates from Tuakau.
One of those mates was an Englishman living in Tuakau, Eric Knight (12/2361). George and Eric were both members of the Tuakau Tennis Club and they had joined up together. They entered Trentham training camp together and were tent mates. Eric would be killed on their second day on Gallipoli. Eric’s two brothers would both be killed in the Great War (one of them Cyril, would killed fighting with the Canterbury Battalion on Gallipoli on the 2nd of June 1915, the other brother fighting with English troops in France). George would visit Eric's family in England, when on leave from the Western Front. There were no sons left in the Knight family after the Great War, only a daughter.
George's other good mate from Tuakau, Harold Smith (12/2374) would also be killed in the war. The Turkish artillery shell that wounded George on their second day on Gallipoli severely wounded Harold, paralysing him and seeing him evacuated off Gallipoli immediately. He was sent to London but never recovered and died there 4 months later.
By sheer coincidence, several of George’s best friends that he grew up with in the Goodwood/Palmerston area had volunteered at the same time. His two best mates, Alexander “Alex” Craig (8/1958) and William “Bill Mack” McDonald (8/2072) were by sheer luck, in the 5th Reinforcements as well, but assigned to the Otago contingent of the reinforcements, George would see his best mates in the Trentham training camp and then they would all go off to war together, albeit in different infantry battalions. They would go looking for each other when their Battalions were resting and in the same area.
Alex Craig, George’s best childhood friend, would be killed in the Battle of Passchendaele on the 12th of October 1917. George had written an ominous prediction in his diary at the start of the Battle of Passchendaele, a conflict that George did not participate in, being held back as a reserve to rebuild the shattered Companies and Battalions after the action, as was done after the Somme and at Messines. George wrote on the 5 of October 1917, “Heard our boys advanced today & got their objectives. Good boys. I suppose some of my old pals have gone under. I hope not … but I know what it is … and some of them will sure to go down.” In Alex’s military record, had bequeathed his belongings and military medals to George’s cousin Edith (Edie) McLaren, who was Alex’s employer on her Goodwood farm, prior to his enlistment. George never mentioned Alex’s death in his diaries.
Tragically Alex’s younger brother Andrew (Andy) Craig (23/715) was also killed, just two months earlier on the raid of La Bassville, Belgium on the 8th of August 1917, fighting with the NZ Rifle Brigade. Alex had told George of Andy’s death when they saw each other on the 17th of August 1917 in a camp near Armentières. It would also be the last time George saw Alex he would be killed three weeks later after this meeting. Andy was engaged to Edith McLaren’s younger sister, Kathleen (Dot) McLaren. Dot would never marry. A third Craig brother, Archibald (Archie), would survive the war. The Great War impacted small communities like Goodwood like nothing had before or since.
While George and his mates were still in training in Tretham Camp, the Australian and New Zealand troops, initially stranded in Egypt, were finally were given their opportunity. They were tasked with the invasion and capture of the Gallipoli Peninsular on the 25th of April 1915 … landing on the now famous ANZAC Cove. Despite several attempts to break out of the ANZAC beachhead, they would be trapped by the Turkish Army and hold on grimly for 4 months, before George and the 5th Reinforcements would arrive there on the 8th of August 1915.
George had started a diary when he first joined the army in February 1915, but he subsequently lost it when he was wounded on just his second day (9th of August 1915) on Gallipoli. This diary would have told of his journey as a recruit, his training for war, the departure and journey overseas, right up to his landing on ANZAC Cove on the 8th of August 1915, right in the middle of the famous Battle of Chunuk Bair, a part of the Sari Bair Campaign, also known as the “August Offensive”.
To tell George’s full story without that first diary, we’ll need to use other sources to reconstruct the timeframe from the 15th February 1915 up until the 25th October 1915, when George started a new second diary whilst he was recovering in Egypt from the wounds he got from being hit by shrapnel on Gallipoli on the 9th of August. Sources we can use are the first three of George’s twenty four surviving letters home (the first two whilst in training in New Zealand, and one from on Gallipoli) and also the diaries and letters of his 5th Reinforcements colleagues. We have the diary of George’s commanding officer, Lt James Doran McComish (12/2410) and two accounts by fellow 3rd Auckland NCO’s Sgt Gilbert Gregory ‘Greg’ Mitchell (12/2392) and Cpl William John Rusden Hill (12/2567). George is briefly mentioned by name in some of these passages.
We'll also tell George's story by starting with his parents journey and move along up to where his #2 diary begins and use these diaries, letters and photo's to tell his WW1 story.