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.
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 Monticello 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.
John Howie's eventually fatal wound, suffered in 1918, is described in sparse terms on his army record: "GSW r arm comm of humerus at elbow joint /comm of radius/complete lesion r ulnar nerve."
It translates as "Gun Shot Wound, right arm, communition (fracturing into many pieces) of upper arm bone at elbow joint, communition of small bone of lower arm/complete lesion (or damage) to right ulnar nerve. (one of the main nerves from the shoulder to the hand)."
He was embarked for home on the Hospital Ship Maheno in May, 1918. I have not been able to find details of the awarding of John's Military Medal, except that it was awarded at the end of October, 1917, after the Aucklands had fought in the Battle of Passchendaele. I have also not been able to find John's immediate cause of death. It could have been infection from his shattered elbow - it could have been a number of things.
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