Norman Watson was a draper when he joined the Army 1914 and was posted to the Otago Mounted Rifles. With the rank of Lance-Corporal, he was wounded in the arm at Gallipoli. He was transferred to the NZ Pioneer Battalion in March 1916 with the rank of Sergeant. From there he was promoted and eventually commissioned in the Otago Infantry Regiment in April 1917.
He was with the Otagos' 1st Battalion in the failed assault on Bellevue Spur on October 10th. The "Official History" describes his death: "The 1st Battalion of Otago now pressed into the breach and renewed the struggle. Officers and men, temporarily unseen by the enemy, crawled through the belts of wire in an almost forlorn endeavour to get at the enemy block-houses and the machine guns which they sheltered. 2nd-Lieuts. J. J. Bishop and N. F. Watson had got so far forward as to be killed in the act of hurling bombs through the loop-holes. On the left 10th Company had all its officers either killed or wounded, and a small group dug in at Wolf Copse, away to the left."
For the Empire's Cause
WATSON — On Friday, October 12, killed while in action "presumably at Bellevue Spur, Flanders," Second Lieutenant Norman Forrester, second beloved son of John and Helen Watson, "Bellevue," Port Chalmers; aged 30 years. Suffered and died for King and Country. -Otago Daily Times, 22/10/1917.
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