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1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force
6th Oct 1914 NZ infantry field day at Miramar The Wellington Infantry Battalion took part in a field day at Miramar against the Otago Battalion. http://www.wanganuilibrary.com/ww1/2009/10/06/tuesday-6th-october-1914/
May 1917 Awards
7th Jun 1917 Splendid Effort
12th Jun 1917 Reliefs
3rd Dec 1917 Attack Made
If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
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| Want to know more about 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force? There are:4 items tagged 1st Battalion, Otago Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War.
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The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
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Want to find out more about your relative's service? Want to know what life was like during the Great War? Our
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- 19th Nov 2024
Please note we currently have a massive backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than
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Did you know? We also have a section on World War Two. and a
Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.
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Pte. Frank Lee 1st Btn Otago Infantry Regiment Born in Latrobe, Tasmania, Frank Lee emigrated to New Zealand in 1912 to Invercargill.
He enlisted in October 1917 and marched into Etaples, France, on 13th of September 1918. (Nom Roll W4849)
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Jack Stanley Pryce 1st Btn. Otago Regiment (d.6th October 1918) My great uncle Jack, his brother Charlie who served with the mounted battalion, and their father George Frederick (a Sergeant) all fought in WW1. My great uncle Charlie and Grandad George survived. Uncle Jack died in combat on 6th of October 1918, aged 26.
My cousins Andy Gibson and Trish McCormick have recently published a collection of letters Uncle Jack wrote during his service. The book is called Jack's Journey.
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Private Harold Selwyn george "Mick" Swain 1st Otago Btn. (d.15th June 1917) Harold Swain was born in Brisbane, Queensland on 26 August 1885. Parents were William John Cowling Swain and Grace Elizabeth Swain (nee Carpenter). The family moved to Napier, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand around 1905. Mick worked in a menswear shop in Hastings (Reardon & Wright).
He enlisted on 7 March 1916 and departed from Wellington on 26th of June 1916, arriving at Devonport on 22nd of August 2016. He arrived at Sling Camp on 23rd of August 1916 and moved to Etaples on 27th of September 1916. On 14th of October 2016 he was in the field until he was killed in action on 15th of June 1917. He is listed among the missing at the Messines Ridge (New Zealand) Memorial, Belgium.
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Pte. Harold George Selwyn "Mick" Swain 1st Otago Btn. (d.15th Jun 1917) Mick Swain was my grandmother's brother. He was born on 26 Aug 1888 in Brisbane Australia. His family moved to New Zealand in 1910. He was living in Christchurch, occupation Tailor before signing up with the 1st Otago.
He was killed in action on the 15th June 1917 and is buried in Messines Ridge British Cemetery, Belgium. He also has a memorial at the family grave in Eskdale Cemetery, Eskdale Lane, off Highway 5 (Napier-Taupo Road), Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.
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Pte. John Joseph Sweeney 1st Btn. Otago Regiment (d.2nd Oct 1916) John Joseph Sweeney was executed for desertion 02/10/1916 age 37 and buried in Dartmoor Cemetery, Somme, France.
He was an Australian of Tasmanian origin. His brother died on the Western Front in 1918 and his father committed suicide in 1925, just before details of execution were made public
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Pte. Victor Manson Spencer 1st Bn. Otago Regiment (d.24th Feb 1918) New Zealander, Victor Manson Spencer, was born in 1894 and died in February 1918.
He was executed for desertion on 24th February 1918 and is buried in The Huts Cemetery, Belgium.
A volunteer member of the NZ Otago Regiment, Pte. Spencer was the last soldier to be executed during the First World War.
His official crime was desertion, but the reason, as with so many others, was probably 'shell-shock', since he had been involved in a number of battles.
In 2005, the New Zealand government granted him a posthumous pardon.
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Pte. Victor Manson Spencer 1st Btn. Otago Regiment (d.24th Feb 1918) Victor Manson Spencer was a volunteer from Invercargill, New Zealand who served with the 1st Battalion Otago Regiment of the New Zealand Expediionary Force in World War I.
Victor was executed for desertion on 24th February 1918,[1] despite later suggestions that he was severely traumatised by shellshock, having fought and survived several campaigns.
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John Joseph Sweeney 1st Btn. Otago Regiment (d.2nd Oct 1916) John Sweeney was an Australian of Tasmanian origin. He was shot for desertion. It is though that Sweeney was suffering from battle fatigue after having spent time doing perhaps one of the hardest war jobs - tunnelling under enemy lines. His courageous service as one of our original ANZACs at Gallipoli was not taken into account at the time of his court-martialling for desertion. After spending time in an Egyptian hospital recovering he was sent to France but couldn't face going to the front any longer - so he never turned up.
Arrested after several weeks wandering behind the lines, his files show he was court-martialled and sentenced to “suffer death by being shot†on the very day of the first New Zealand attack on the Somme. His brother died on the Western Front in 1918 and his father committed suicide in 1925, just before details of execution were made public.
He was posthumously pardoned on 14 September 2000, when New Zealand's Pardon for Soldiers of the Great War Act became law.
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Recomended Reading.Available at discounted prices.
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New Zealand and the Great War: A Photographic Record of New Zealanders at War 1914-1918 Glyn Harper
They shall not grow old...In 1914, despite being forbidden, many a Kiwi soldier's kitbag included a portable camera, known as 'The Soldiers' Kodak'. In a major research project, Glyn Harper and the Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum have combined official war photographs with more informal images to produce a moving visual history. While primarily drawn from the Museum's collection, many photographs from private sources have been included. From more than 25,000 photographs, just over 800 have been selected - most of which have never been published. Chosen to depict each theatre of the 1914-18 war, including Gallipoli, Sinai-Palestine and the Western Front, poignant images from the home front are also included, along with graphic portraits of wounded soldiers, whose treatment marked the beginnings of modern plastic surgery. Despite the First World War being described as the most important and far-reaching political and military event of the twentieth century, pivotal in forging our
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