Sporting Taranaki Servicepeople

Many Taranaki servicepeople were also keen sportspeople.  Whether they were sporting weekend warriors or high profile heroes this is a place to gather some of their stories to honour their contribution to sport and New Zealand through their military service.

A few short years after the team sat for this photograph Private Charles Crone (standing 5th from left) was killed in action during the assault on Chunuk Bair.  Charles who “was in the first rank of practically every form of sport and showed unusual scholastic ability” had passed his public service examination with merit before enlisting, was mentioned in dispatches. 

Gerald Chong, (standing first on left) was working as a chemist’s assistant when he signed up for service in 1916, becoming one of the very few Chinese New Zealanders to serve during World War One. Enlisting in the medical corps, his bravery under intense shelling earned him the Military Medal  for conspicuous service .His family says their father refused to talk about his experiences when he returned home, not wanting to be reminded of the horrors he had seen.

John Grey (sitting first on left) was working as a farmer when he embarked with the 22nd Reinforcements of the Wellington Infantry Regiment on 22 February 1917. He was killed in Ypres, Belgium in December the same year.

Reg Taylor: All Black and Soldier

Reginald (Reg) Taylor

Reg Taylor, a vigorous footballer in the much debated wing forward position, was an outstanding member of some strong Taranaki sides between 1910 and 1914.

After playing for Taranaki in two closely fought Ranfurly Shield challenges against Auckland in 1910 and 1912 Taylor had a leading role in the 1913 match when Taranaki ended Auckland's eight year, 23-match reign with a 14-11 win. Taylor then played in all seven of the successful defences made by Taranaki in 1914 before the shield was lost in the last match of the season to Wellington.

Also in the 1913 season Taylor had been in the Taranaki side which lost narrowly to the touring Australians. He then won selection for the All Black side to play against Australia in the last two tests of the three-match series.

After the first test the main All Black players had gone off for their tour of North America. So both of Taylor's appearances were for a second selection despite carrying official test cap status.

Taylor marked his debut by scoring a try in the 25-13 win in the test in Dunedin, but the match a week later in Christchurch in which he also appeared was lost 16-5.

In 1914 Taylor was in the North side for the interisland match but was not included in the All Black side named immediately afterwards for a tour of Australia.

The outbreak of World War I brought Taylor's career to an end. Taylor left New Zealand in 1915 to serve in the war and in 1917 in Belgium, aged only 28, he was killed in action, one of 13 All Blacks who perished in that conflict. Source: allblacks.com http://stats.allblacks.com/asp/profile.asp?ABID=877

Wynn Wilson Memorial Shield 

The turtle shell used for this shield was purchased overseas during World War Two and converted into a memorial for New Plymouth man Wynn Wilson. Before the war Wilson was an active member of the New Plymouth Athletics Club, winning the Taranaki Championships mile race in 1935. He also was active in rugby, cycling and cricket. When World War Two began he was one of the first Taranaki men to ship out on the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force in an advance party which left in December 1939. He served in the thick of the action in Greece and Crete until he was captured in 1941. He spent the rest of the war in Bavarian P.O.W camps, completing a law degree, accountancy exam and Māori language qualification. Towards the end of the war, with the Allied forces advancing, Wilson was forced to leave his camp with the other prisoners and march ahead of the advance. During the march he fell seriously ill and when he was rescued he was also found to have sustained a serious head injury, thought to be from a rifle butt. He was returned to London for treatment but died soon afterwards. He was 29. The Wynn Wilson memorial shield, awarded annually to the club which earned the most points in the Taranaki Amateur Athletics Championships, was first contested in the 1948-1949 season. For more information see 'Dedicated and Determined': The Wynn Wilson Memorial Shield in Moffat, A. Flashback: Tales and Treasures of Taranaki. Wellington, Huia, 2012, pp.57-59.

Ned Shewry

John Edward (Ned) Shewry from Kōhuratahi was the ‘gun’ at Eltham’s chopping carnivals before the First World War. He was described as ‘the greatest champion [axeman]’ by sports journalist Wallie Ingram, and his axe-wielding skills are still recounted with awe. One story about Shewry’s large handicap is legendary. He had to start chopping long after other competitors had begun, and one day an elderly lady complained: ‘It’s not fair the way that fellow Shewry chops. … He waits until the others have been chopping for seconds and seconds, and are tired, and then he starts! No wonder he wins, they’re always too tired to keep up with him.’ - Source:Ron Lambert, 'Taranaki region - Sport and recreation', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/taranaki-region/page-12 (accessed 20 April 2020)

J R Cargo

REG QUILLIAM

"Much regret will be felt at the ending of so popular and promising a young man, who was beloved by all who knew him. "Reg." Quilliam was educated at New Plymouth High School and Nelson College, afterwards entering the office of Messrs Govett & Quilliam. solicitors. He was very closely identified with athletic sports. He was a keen footballer, being an enthusiastic member of the Rovers and later, the Tukapa Clubs. The Law Cricket Club had in him a hard-working member, and tennis also claimed a good deal of his attention. He left for active service early in 1915, with the 'Fifths, and saw much fighting at Gallipoli, escaping sickness and wounds. After a spell in Egypt he proceeded with the main body to France, and it is "somewhere, there'' his career has been cut short." Source: The Daily News 11 August 1916

NEVILLE ARDEN

Neville Arden was a keen cricketer and grew up in New Plymouth. He attended Wanganui Collegiate before returning to New Plymouth and starting an architectural career. While successful his career was short lived as he enlisted in February 1916.  He was quickly in action, and sent back a number of  letters published in local newspapers. His first experiences were in the Senussi campaign in North Africa.  One of his letters describes life there in detail and comparing the war to playing an away game.

" The stay here has been delightful in many ways and now the weather is more settled wo get lots of cricket and swimming. We are right away from all interference and the evils of civilisation. Men are much easier to handle and happier, too.There is always the prospect of a fight; the only trouble being that we always have to go and play on their ground.' They never come along to ours. Still, even with long marches and the hardships of transport, etc., it must be far better than trench work, although opinions seem to differ. We can always keep clean and have an easv time between the fights  and our Saturday night concerts and Sunday services proceed without fear of interruption." - Taranaki Herald 21 March 1916

He later moved with his battalion to France, was promoted and Mentioned in Dispatches for brave conduct.

Arden was described as cheerful under all circumstances and earned the respect and friendship of many during is career. In France he served in the thick of the action and was killed in action leading his men repeatedly charging a strongly defended pillbox. His friend and second-in-command M.D Rohan described the battle in a letter to Arden's mother.

“I was his second in command during the battle and had been an officer with him ever since the brigade was formed. We were the firmest of friends, and even here, where life counts for little or nothing, his death has been a very severe shock to me. Captain Arden was as upright and brave a man as it was possible for a British officer to he. He had long ago earned the respect and admiration of his men. They would, and indeed did, follow him to the death."  - Taranaki Herald 26 January 1918

Ronald Corkill

Ronald Corkill was an outstanding sportsman, scholar and teacher. The New Plymouth-raised Corkill had what was described as a “brilliant career” at New Plymouth Boys’ High School in the 1930s. A summary published in the 1944 school magazine, was a glowing tribute to a high achiever: “He won shooting championships, the Sole Cup for the best N.C.O., the Bendall Memorial Prize, the Senior Debating Cup and the General Excellence Cup. For two years he was in the First XV. At Victoria College he gained his Blues. He was president of the Victoria University College Students’ Association and of the Weir House Students Association. In 1939 he completed the Diploma of Education and in 1940 graduated Master of Arts. In that year he was nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship. He joined the staff of Wellesley College in Wellington and later went to the Correspondence School.” Corkill enlisted later and was appointed initially to Fiji. He resigned to travel to the Middle East. Colin Cochran, a fellow Taranaki recruit who travelled with him to Egypt, said Corkill spoke fluent Italian and taught the other soliders on the journey over. While in Cairo Corkill won several rowing trophies.Tragically none of Corkill’s skills, talents or experiences could save him when the truck he was driving was struck by artillery on 23 September 1944 near Rimini, Italy and he was killed in action.

Norman LeAland

Norman Lealand was a sporting administrator as well as a player and was an active member of the Star Rugby Club and Taranaki Alpine Club. He played senior rugby for Star and was also a member of the New Plymouth Swimming and Lifesaving Club. He enlisted in the army at the outbreak of World War Two and served for the first two years in New Zealand. He was sent to fight with the 22nd (Motor) Battalion in Egypt taking part in heavy fighting. While being taken to a casualty clearing station he was killed by sniper fire on 22 October 1944. He is buried in Ravenna War Cemetery Italy. He was 35 when he died and left a wife and two young children in New Plymouth.

Peter Leslie Winter

Peter Winter enlisted for World War Two when he was a 20-year-old Taranaki Daily News reporter. A story in the newspaper after his death in 2004 summed up a few of Winter's war experiences.

"Like a lot of others, I considered myself bullet-proof _ and I was very lucky," he told The Daily News in a millennium feature. "During the course of the war I was shot at by New Zealanders, Italians, Germans and Americans and not one of those buggers fired straight." Bitter at the futility of war, he put pen to paper."The whole bloody war" was a "silly pointless exercise," he decided.His first book, Expendable, The Crete campaign _ A Front-Line View, blamed Kiwi Lieutenant-General Bernard Freyberg for New Zealand's high number of casualties during the war. Another, Free Lodging, recounts his time as a prisoner of war.He said hunger and boredom drove him to attempt to escape 13 times after his capture in Crete in April 1941. He and 1000 Anzac prisoners of war were put to work in the forced labour camps at the Milowitz coal mine close to Auschwitz, where they witnessed horrific cruelties. "I was an enthusiastic but very poor escaper," he said in 1995. His last  successful  escape was from a column of POWs who were marched for 14 weeks over 1000km as the Allies closed in during 1945."I simply stepped out of the column. I just froze in the shadows of the hedgerow." Taranaki Daily News 14 February 2004

One of the features of life as a Prisoner of war was the sporting sprit of the prisoners. In his book winter remembered cricket, soccer, volleyball and deck tennis helped fill many hours. Among keepsakes he brought home from the war was a cricket ball made out of Red Cross Parcel string by one of the prisoners. It is now in the collection of Puke Ariki in New Plymouth.

After the war Winter farmed and raised a family at Tikorangi, becoming very well known for his passionate environmental advocacy.

Douglas Allan Harle

Douglas Harle was a “clever and industrious boy” who attended New Plymouth’s Central School and New Plymouth Boys’ High School before he moved to Wellington. He earned a Board’s scholarship from Central in 1905 and was awarded a Queen’s Scholarship in 1906. A member of the New Plymouth Lawn Tennis Club he was a keen all around sportsman. He left New Plymouth for Wellington in 1908 where he attended Wellington College, becoming Dux and Head of School in 1911. At Victoria University he was involved in football, boxing and tennis clubs while studying for his Bachelor of Laws. His university holidys were spent working for New Plymouth solicitor A H Johnstone.  He graduated in 1915 and went into camp in April 1916 and sailed with the 23rd Reinforcements. 

Harle was killed on 4 October 1917 during the Passchendaele Offensive, when his unit, the 2nd Battalion of the Wellington Regiment was part of a morning attack on Gravenstafel Spur. He was among 492 New Zealanders killed that day, which included the first All Black Captain, Dave Gallaher. Douglas Harle was 24 when he died.

See an obituary prepared by the New Zealand Law Society for more information: https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/news/people-in-the-law/obituaries/obituaries-list/douglas-allan-harle-1893-1917/ 

 This story has been compiled on behalf of Sport Taranaki www.sporttaranaki.org.nz. If you know of a story that could be added please contact Andrew Moffat andrew.moffat@sporttaranaki.org.nz