12/3051 Private Walter John Howie, MM, 1/5/1887-11/1/1922.

 

Walter John Howie was a clerk with the New Zealand Railways when he joined the Army in the middle of 1915.  Living in Mercer at the time, he was enlisted in the Auckland Infantry Regiment.  He is recorded as heaving been wounded in action at Armentieres on June 25, 1916 - "shaken by shell shock."  Those few words conceal a world of terror.  It took four months of hospital time followed by easy duty attached to Headquarters, before he was back in the trenches the following October.

Howie was wounded a second time in June of 1916, taking a bullet in his left shoulder.  This time he was back "in the Field" within a month and, the following October, was awarded the Military Medal for "acts of gallantry in the field."  After a week's leave in the UK, he was back with his Regiment in time to meet the Germany Army in its Spring Offensive in early 1918.  On March 28th he was wounded a third time - a gunshot wound which broke his right arm and severed the ulnar nerve.  

This was at the height of the German advance, when the Aucklanders were marched into the field to plug a gap between armies.  They held the line, long enough for the NZ artillery batteries to take up positions behind them and secure their position. But many men, including Walter Howie, paid the price.

He arrived home as a "cot case" - one of six - in June 1918 on the Hospital Ship Maheno.  I do not know what John's actual cause of death was, but it is recorded as being "the result of wounds received in action."  That, and the "years of suffering" mentioned in the final story below, indicate a long, painful end of his life.

FUNERAL NOTICE.

THE Friends of the late 12/3051 Private Walter John Howie (and family) are respectfully invited to attend his Funeral, which will leave his parents' residence, Palmerston, on SATURDAY, the 14th inst., at 2 p.m., for the Palmerston Cemetery. 

HOPE AND KINASTON, Undertakers.  -Evening Star, 12/1/1922.

Personal

Private Walter John Howie, who died recently at the Dunedin was one of those to whom service in the Great War had meant years of suffering. He left New Zealand with the 3rd Auckland Regiment (about the Seventh Reinforcements), and fought in Egypt and France, gaining the Military Medal. He received gunshot wounds in the arm while fighting in France and illness supervening, he had spent the most of the time since his return to New Zealand in hospital or the Montecello Convalescent Home, where he was very popular. His home was at Palmerston South, where the body was removed for interment.  -Otago Daily Times, 26/1/1922.

Palmerston Cemetery.