10075 ~ JAMES HAROLD RUSSELL HUNTER
In 2016 an unusual find beside Kerikeri Road, Kerikeri was referred to me by Mr Frank Lewis, a former RNZ Navy communicator and the then President of the Kerikeri RSA.
A roadside find …
Frank said a blue beret had been found on a Kerikeri roadside together with a miniature medal bar to which had been attached three miniature First World War medals, only two of which remained. The miniature medals still attached were the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) with ribbon of the 1st Type, and a British War Medal (BWM). The Victory Medal was missing and appeared to have been torn from the brooch bar leaving just a centimeter of its ribbon still attached.
The beret had clearly been on the side of the road for sometime as the medal ribbon colours had run and were faded which seemed consistent with having been soaked for some time. The beret had most likely either been thrown or accidentally lost from a passing vehicle, cyclist etc. Of New Zealand manufacture, the blue wool beret was un-named but still had the makers badge stitched into the lining – ARMY PROPERTY – made by Hills Hats of Wellington. The beret had three badges attached to it – a small NZRSA membership lapel badge and two ‘sweetheart’ brooch badges ** – WW1 NZEF “Expeditionary Force” and an Australian “ANZAC” brooch. The only identifying element was a service number impressed on the reverse of the NZ Returned Soldiers Association badge – “10075”. Frank Lewis had checked the Auckland War Memorial’s Cenotaph database and ascertained the number belonged to 10075 James Harold Russell Hunter. He said that members of the Kerikeri RSA had been canvassed for anyone who may have recognized the beret or miniature medals, or had seen anyone wearing either of these, that might have helped to identify the owner. No information came to light.
Note: ** “Sweetheart” was the name used to describe brooches, pins on badges that were generally copies of military badges or a crafted piece of jewellery with a military or personalised theme related to the soldier the who was giving the “sweetheart”, e.g. a unit collar-badge made in precious metals. Soldiers could either purchase “sweethearts” made commercially or have something made by a jeweller, and in some cases made their own, to give to their mothers, wives, girlfriends or other female relatives, hence the name “sweetheart”.
In the months that Frank had been in possession of the beret and medals, no-one reported any of the items missing and no enquiries had been made of the Kerikeri RSA members. Frank had left the beret in the office of the RSA on the off chance someone would recognize or claim it at some later date. After canvassing the RSA membership for possible owners, a nil result also meant that the search ceased and so the beret had remained in the Kerikeri RSA secretary’s office until the club was eventually closed.
When Frank initially contacted me about the find, as is our policy, I requested he send the beret to MRNZ before we undertook the research. When the beret and medals did not arrive in due course, and without wishing to hassle Frank, I put that case on the back burner until they arrived, and then forgot about it. MRNZ is often advised of items that have been found and are not sent to us for one reason or another by owners who were initially keen to have the medal/medals or ephemera returned to an owner or family. As part of the administration for any medal or item of ephemera that is found, we place an advertisement on the AWMM Cenotaph profile page of the service person the items are attributed to, and also list their name on the Medals LOST + FOUND page of our website. This provides two passive opportunities for someone who recognises the name to either contact us or advise someone they know who may be connected. Since no member of the Kerikeri RSA had any idea of the beret’s owner, it had remained in the office.
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Cenotaph notice sparks inquiry
In August I received a call from Mr Alan Lovell of Owhata, a semi-rural suburb of Rotorua, regarding an entry I had posted on the profile page of 10075 WO II (CSM) James Harold Russell Hunter, 2/ Canterbury Inf Regt – 11th Reinforcements seeking a direct descendant of the soldier to contact MRNZ as we were holding medals or ephemera that had once belonged to the soldier which was available to be claimed. In this case the reference was to a numbered post-1941 NZRSA membership lapel badge which had the soldier’s regimental number engraved on the rear. This was how all NZRSA membership badges used to be issued. However it was the only item that could be tied to the soldier – the remaining badges and beret may or may not have belonged to the soldier’s descendant family. For all we knew the badges and beret could have been collected by anyone from various locations, there was no way to know. Whilst waiting for Frank to send the beret and badges to MRNZ, I had pre-empted their arrival and advertised on the cenotaph page of J.H.R. Hunter. After four weeks the beret had no appeared so I contacted Frank again and reminded him it had not arrived. He had been flat out and overlooked sending and would get it away shortly.
Well, one thing led to another as they do and still the beret failed to materialise. I was too busy with other cases to pursue it so put the case on the back burner and promptly forgot about it. Whenever there is a ‘no show’ medal or item ephemera that has been offered by a finder (and there are quite a few, wanting us to do the research but not willing to entrust us with the medal etc), the onus remains on the finder to send the items to us before we will start any research. We simply do not have the time to chase up ‘offers’ that do not materialise. If we have the medals etc in our possession, when we do find a descendant I am then in a position to guarantee handover, irrespective of where in the world they might live.
In this particular case, when the beret did not arrive I had forgotten to remove the advertisement from the Cenotaph profile page of J.H.R. Hunter and our website page, Medals LOST + FOUND. It was indeed sheer good luck that Alan Lovell spotted my unintended error and saw the errant notice still posted on J.H.R. Hunter’s profile page. Alan’s timing and my forgetfulness became a most fortunate coincidence. Alan had recognised the name and service number of his maternal grandfather. He phoned me and asked what it was we had of his grandfather’s. I told him what had been found and that the RSA badge with the number engraved on the back of it was the only identifying reference we had. I was flabbergasted when Alan told me he had once owned that particular NZRSA badge but had lost it years ago, and so was very keen to get it back. It represented the only item of his grandfather’s that he could own.
I then roughly described the beret to him along with two other badges – did he recognise these? That seemed to ring a bell with Alan, he said he used to wear a beret some years ago when he attended Anzac Day parades with a friend from Kerikeri and that he had attached his grandfather’s NZRSA badge to it! Being somewhat cautious at this point, I told Alan I could only describe these from the photographs I had been sent by Frank and would make some inquiries to see if the beret was still in existence.
I called the Kerikeri RSA but unbeknown to me it had closed its doors permanently in 2021 and Frank Lewis was long gone, he had moved to Otorohanga. Fortunately I still had Frank’s cell phone number from a previous medal return we did for the Kerikeri RSA. I located Frank and asked him about the fate of the beret? I was pleasantly surprised to learn it was right in front of him as we spoke. I told him what had happened and of Alan, the potential owner – could he send it down to MRNZ? .. and he did the very next day.
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“10075” goes to war …
Alan Lovell’s grandfather James Harold Russell Hunter (known as Harold/Harry) was born in Auckland on 18 June 1895, and raised on his parent’s farm at Onewhero in the northern Waikato. Gideon Hunter (1863-1936) came from Kirkby Lonsdale in Westmoreland, England and his wife, Ada Amelia WILLIAMSON (1862-1928) was Australian, born and raised in Newcastle, NSW. The couple married at Newtown, New South Wales in 1884 where all four daughters were born: Violet May, Ethel Rebecca, Lillian May “Lily”, Elsie May Hunter. The Hunters immigrated to Auckland circa 1894 and began farming at Onewhero where brothers, James Harold Russell and Ernest Leslie Hunter were born. Gideon initially worked as a Bricklayer in Parnell before farming at Onewhero until shortly after World War 1. While at school, Harold and Ernest compulsorily joined the Company of School Cadets when they turned 12 and once they left, were automatically transferred to the local territorial unit, the 16th (Waikato) Regiment where Harold eventually rose to the rank of Sergeant Major.
QMS James Harold Russell Hunter
When Britain declared war with Germany in 1914 Harold had immediately volunteered for overseas service however needed to wait until he had turned 20, the minimum age requirement to serve overseas. In the interim he continued to train part-time with the 16th Waikato Regt. Having had his 20th birthday in June, Harold was attested for war service on 7 September 1915. He was destined for the Auckland Mounted Rifles (AMR) as part of the 11th Reinforcements. His territorial service, and with rank and experience taken into account, Harold was appointed to the NZEF rank of Sergeant.
Following training at the Trentham and Featherston Training Camp, Sgt. Hunter departed Wellington on 1st Apr 1916 with the 11th Reinforcements together with the NZ Rifle Brigade’s 2nd & 5th Reinforcements. The soldiers were split between to troop transport ships – HMNZT 49 Maunganui and HMNZT 50 Tahiti and destined for Suez, via Western Australia. The ships arrived at Suez on the 3rd of May, the troops disembarked and moved to the NZ General Base Depot / Mounted Rifles Base Depot at Tel-el-Kabir which is situated 110km north-east of Cairo in the Ismailia Governorate, 75km south of Port Said at Alexandra. Here they relaxed, trained and maintained personal fitness for the next three weeks. The 11th then re-embarked at Alexandria and arrived in Devonport, southern England in June 1916. After disembarking, the troops entrained for the NZ Training Camp depot at Sling Camp on the Salisbury Plains in county of Wiltshire.
Here the Reinforcements stayed for three weeks before boarding HMT Nile at Port Said and sailing to Devonport, arriving on June 9th. Once disembarked, the Reinforcements were entrained for Bulford which is on the Salisbury Plain in the southern English county of Wiltshire. Bulford was the end of the line and the start of training in earnest for all NZEF troops arriving in the United Kingdom. From the Bulford station the troops were marched the last six kilometers to the NZ Training Camp depot at Sling Camp. The camp had originally been built in 1903 as an annex to the Bulford Camp Army training camp, and was then named “Sling Plantation” after the nearby woods. Soon after the beginning of World War I, New Zealand troops started work on building wooden huts at Sling. They were later joined by Canadian troops, joiners, bricklayers, and civilian workers. The word “Plantation” was then dropped from the title and it simply became Sling Camp. After building was completed, it was said that if each hut were placed end-to-end they would measure 6 miles (9.6kms).
In 1916, the camp was occupied by New Zealand Expeditionary Force personnel and was then known by some as “Anzac Camp”. At that time it comprised four main sections of accommodation, known in Army speak as “Lines”: Auckland, Wellington, Otago, and Canterbury Lines. Its official title was the 4th New Zealand Infantry Brigade Reserve Camp. Its purpose was to train reinforcements, and casualties who were regaining fitness before being returned to the Front. In 1918, there were some 4,300 Kiwi soldiers at Sling.
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School of Musketry
Sgt. Hunter had demonstrated his prowess as a better than average rifle shot both during his territorial service and during the training at Trentham, Featherston and since their arrival at Sling. A senior NCO who was already a capable instructor, Sgt. Hunter was singled out for a musketry instructor’s position in the Training Battalion at Sling. The Battalion was a permanent unit headquartered at Sling Camp which was made up of qualified officer and NCO instructors who were responsible for rifle training of reinforcement drafts as they arrive, before they were sent to France.
In August 1916 Sgt. Hunter was sent to the School of Musketry (SoM) at Hayling Island to attend a specialist rifle training Instructors Course from 28 Aug to 16 Nov. Hayling Island, a small island of approximately 6 by 11 kilometers on the south coast of England is a few miles east of Plymouth, was the site of the British Army’s Southern Command School of Musketry. The Hayling SoM was one of several musketry schools in Britain, the primary facility being at Hythe on the south coast of Kent.
The SoM was run from rooms in the Royal Hotel which also provided the main accommodation for the School of Musketry’s students, although other properties on the island were used. The Orderly Room was in a converted shop on the road behind the hotel. Training took place along the grass common next to the beach and the range was towards the south west end of the island.
A complete timetable from the Southern Command School of Musketry for a 40 hour course of training for instructors over a period of 8 days covered the following topics – Trigger Pressing; Aiming Instruction; Firing Instruction Care of Arms; Visual Training; Judging Distance; Mechanism; Tests of Elementary training; Miniature Range Work; Indication and Recognition of Targets; Fire Orders; Fire Discipline and Use of Cover. In addition to training musketry instructors, training was also given for the Hotchkiss Machine Gun.
There were two types of Musketry Instructor’s courses conducted at the SoM: Qualifying and Refresher. These were separated by the different subjects: Rifle; Machine Gun; Range-Taking; Senior Officers’ Course and a Special Course. There were approximately 45 NCO Instructors on staff, 7 of who were quartermaster-sergeant (QMS) instructors and another 7 were company sergeant-major instructors (CSM). All student instructors attended as Sergeants and were passed as either a 1st or 2nd Class Instructor. A 1st Class pass entitled them to promotion to the next rank.
Sgt. Hunter qualified as a First Class Instructor and was posted to Canterbury Regiment in France as a Musketry Instructor meaning he would fulfill this training roll in the field. He left for France on 21 March 1917 and in May, departed from the NZ Infantry and General Base Depot at Etaples on posting to No.2 Company, 2nd Battalion, Canterbury Infantry Regiment which at that time was in Western Flanders, Belgium. No sooner had he arrived in the field, he found his unit and the rest of the NZ Brigade who had been weathering seemingly endless enemy bombardments, attack and counter attack from an entrenched and determined enemy, preparing for a major attack on the German positions near the town of Messines.
Messines ~ West Flanders, Belgium
On June 7th, 1917 at precisely 3.10 a.m. the Battle of Messines opened with the detonation of 19 mines deep beneath the German lines. The New Zealanders, being charged with capturing the town of Messines, started to move across no-man’s land at zero hour. Sgt. Hunter and his platoon entered the town on the left flank of the advance, when they came under heavy machine-gun and artillery fire. Sgt. Hunter was immediately hit in the left thigh with a piece of shrapnel from a bursting shell, severely wounding him. By 05.00 a.m. the town was in the hands of the Kiwi’s and by 08.40 they had taken all their objectives. Sgt. Hunter was picked up from the battlefield by the 77th British Field Ambulance and taken to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station. He was then moved to the British 13 General Hospital at Boulogne which managed the most severely wounded cases prior to their evacuation to general hospital in England. Sgt. Hunter was loaded onto the Hospital Ship St. Patrick and arrived at Southampton on 13 June and taken to No.1 NZ General Hospital at Brockenhurst. His leg wound was assessed, the damage was too great to repair and accordingly his left leg was amputated at the thigh. Over the following six months, Sgt. Hunter’s stump slowly healed and he learned how to best manage his disability during his convalescence and rehabilitation at No.2 NZ General Hospital at Walton-on-Thames.
Able to move with the aid of crutches, on 21 Feb 1918 Sgt. Hunter’s rehabilitation included a course of instruction at the Mechanical Transport Depot run at Guys Motors in Wolverhampton. Guy Motors Limited was founded by Sydney S. Guy in May 1914 and operated from its Fallings Park factory in Wolverhampton until its closure in 1982. In 1915 the company came under the control of the War Office, Ministry of Munitions, and focused production on manufacturing military vehicles.
All soldiers who suffered severe injuries like the loss of a limb, undertook occupational therapy and rehabilitation training to the extent their injuries/level of disability allowed them. Experience in occupations that would enable them to work if they were unable to return to their pre-injury occupation was an essential part of their mental as well as physical recovery. For a lower limb amputee like Harold, vehicle assembly provided both occupational therapy and interest as vehicle production had increased hugely as a result war demands.
Between April and August, Sgt. Hunter was back at Walton-on-Thames to be fitted with his artificial leg, spending some time becoming accustomed to wearing and managing the limb. A Medical Board formally assessed him as ‘UNFIT’ and preparations made to be returned to NZ. In October Sgt. Hunter was transferred to Oatlands Hospital in Weybridge, Surrey which was being used as a convalescent hospital, predominantly for NZ soldiers. Every soldier without a limb received two duplicate artificial limbs before their discharge and so Sgt. Hunter received second artificial leg fitting in December 1918 before his transfer to the NZ Discharge Depot at the southern seaside town of Torquay for demobilisation.
Sgt. Harold Hunter finally left England on the NZHS Maheno on 18 February 1919 from Avonmouth which arrived in Auckland on March 21st, the date his discharge from the NZEF took effect – classified as “no longer physically fit for war service on account of wounds received in action”.
Awards: British War Medal 1914/18 and Victory Medal + Silver War Badge (SWB)
Service Overseas: 2 yrs 295 days
Total NZEF Service: 3 years 199 days
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Return to Onewhero
Harold Hunter returned to the family farm at Onehwero which was then being run by his brother Ernest. The following year Harold married Lily Louisa WILLIAMS (1900-1982) from Blenheim, at St. Stephens in Auckland. It was around this time Harold and Lily moved to Ostend on Waiheke Island where Harold worked as a Labourer. The Hunters began their family which eventually totaled five children – a son Reginald (Reg) Hunter and four daughters, Alma Daphne Hunter (CLARKSON / AVERY), Mavis Ada Hunter (LOVELL), Joyce Hunter (FLORIAN) and Faye Hunter (SLY).
By 1925, Harold’s brother Ernest, a Contractor had joined he and Lily on Waiheke after they relocated to Putiki Bay. Harold also drove the local school bus for the islands school children, no mean task on dodgy gravel roads in a manual bus with three pedals and Harold’s tin leg! Additionally, Harold and Lily took over the Palm Beach Tea Kiosk and Store which included post office facilities. This they ran for about three years before returning to Auckland and their home in Liverpool Street, Glen Eden in the later part of 1928. Here Harold ran a store for a couple of years before becoming a full time mechanic, an occupation he pursued for the remainder of his working life. Moves to Owairaka St and Highland Ave occurred all within the suburb of Mt Roskill which saw Harold and Lily through to their retirement. Harold gave up work and retired fully just after the end of WW2, the couple finally settling at 16 Beatty Street.
Fond memories
Harold’s grandson Alan Lovell was only five years old when Harold died but still has clear memories of his grandfather sitting in his garden tending his vegetables, and seeing his tin leg which he kept beside his bed. “Guggy” as his grandchildren knew him, was a man his family believed had grown old before his time. His experiences in the Great War and the loss of a leg that affected Harold and from which he never really fully recovered from (we call it PTSD today).
James Harold Russell Hunter passed away from an illness on 6 April 1956 at the relatively young age of 60. He is buried in the Waikumete Soldiers’ Cemetery together with his beloved Lily who had remained his widow for 26 more years.
~ Lest We Forget ~
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Proof of ownership
After I got hold of Frank and confirmed he still had the beret and badges in Otorohanga, I explained to Alan what exactly Frank had found. It was then he casually said he had once had a beret with badges on it which he used to wear on Anzac Days in honour his grandfather. I asked him if he could describe the beret and badges on his beret (I had photographs Frank had sent me so I knew exactly what Frank had). Alan seemed to think the beret was blue or black, he couldn’t remember exactly, and that the badges were familiar. Alan told me he had at one time been a keen military badge collector but had liquidated his collection some years ago. When I prompted him for descriptions of the badges he thought he might have had on his beret, with my help he seemed to be much surer the badges had been his. “Better still” he said, Alan had kept photographs of his collection and perhaps these would prove the badges on the beret had been his. The photos he sent me were conclusive – they were definitely Alan’s badges, as was the beret. So how did this situation come about?
When next we spoke Alan had had time to collect his thoughts … he recalled he had last worn a beret to an Anzac Day parade about 10 years previously. Alan had a friend living in Kerikeri at that time who he visited a couple of times a year, one of these occasions being Anzac Day to which both would go and Alan would wear the beret. After Alan’s friend died several years ago he no longer had any reason to go to Kerikeri and his attendance at Anzac Day parades dropped away. Alan believes he could well have left it somewhere like his deceased friend’s house, a pub, restaurant etc, anywhere after an Anzac Day parade but really had no idea. Once he liquidated his badge collection he had even less reason to recall or look for the beret. We can all identify with having left something behind and never thinking of it again, until perhaps we go to look for it?
Where the beret had been in the intervening years is anyone’s guess but until it finished up on the side of Kerikeri Road, it had obviously been looked after and not on the roadside too long. Frank had commented that the beret looked as if it had been on the roadside for some time, it was wet and grubby. The miniature medals were a complete mystery to Alan – he had never seen them before nor owned any. Someone (possibly up to no good) perhaps had ‘acquired’ the beret and medals, and then abandoned or lost them…?
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In arranging to return the beret to Alan, he mentioned to me that he had an additional RSA badge he had kept from collection but that it was not his grandfathers. It was one of the older Returned Soldiers’ Badges which can be seen in the picture above left, the large badge had preceded the smaller lapel badge and was first introduced by the Returned Soldiers Association in 1916. The badge was issued with a security chain attached and had the soldier’s service number engraved on the front of the badge. Alan offered me the badge to try and locate the soldier’s descendant family. The badge number 58757 belonged to a Rifleman John FRIDD, 3rd NZ Rifle Brigade … but that is the subject of another story yet to come.
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Thanks to Frank Lewis for taking good care of Alan Lovell’s beret and badges, and for bringing them to MRNZ’s attention so they could be reunited with their owner.
The reunited medal tally is now 422.
The Auckland Patriotic Queen Carnival 1915
Queen’s Carnivals were a popular fundraising initiative in the 20th century. During the First World War, carnivals included performances, parades and the sale of local produce.
Usually, a dozen candidates (such as Queen of the Seas, Queen of the Dardanelles, Country Queen, Queen of the North) competed to be elected the ‘Queen of the Carnival’, with the winner pronounced queen in a coronation ceremony. In the lead up to a carnival, the Queens were tasked with fundraising for returning soldiers, their families and war refugees. Twelve candidates competed to be Queen in the Auckland Carnival in 1915.
The New Zealand Ensign named “Our Soldiers’ Flag” was a fundraiser for the Soldiers’ Queen, Mrs Alice Wallingford, who was the wife of Captain (later Major) Jesse A. Wallingford – a crack shot, Olympian and an Instructor at the British School of Musketry, Hythe.
Mrs Agnes Keary embroidered names on the flag for a ‘gold coin’ fee of ten shillings each. The flag is embroidered with the names of the Hauraki Squadron of the Auckland Mounted Rifles. At the centre of the Jack is the name of Aucklander Cpl. Cyril Bassett, VC who was a member of the Auckland Divisional Signals Company. It proved so popular that names kept being added even after the carnival had finished. The flag was presented during a fete at Point Erin Park. More than 20,000 people attended the event, which was organised by the Ponsonby unit of the National Reserve in support of Mrs Wallingford’s fundraising efforts. The New Zealand Herald reported:
“During the evening the Union Jack presented to the group by Mrs A J Keary was unfurled, and the names of many Auckland soldiers now at the front will be embroidered on the flag as a result of the gold contributions received. Dainty souvenir programmes containing an autograph photograph of the Soldiers’ Queen were sold in large numbers.”
New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16057, 25 October 1915, Page 4.
The flag fundraising initiative raised £305 for the Auckland Wounded Soldiers’ Fund.
Mrs Wallingford placed fourth in the Queen Carnival, held in Auckland in November 1915. In the 10 weeks leading up to the coronation, nearly 21 million votes were cast – at a price of threepence per vote. The carnival raised a total of £269,000 ($37 million today).
Source: Auckland War Memorial Museum website
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