24399 Sergeant Harold Hubert Peebles, (-14/4/1917). "eager to get to the front"

Two presentations were made by Mr Young, of Thames street yesterday, the recipients being Messrs Harold Peebles (a wristlet watch) and John Vincent (razor and tobacco), who are leaving for Trentham to-morrow. Mr Peebles was apprenticed to the jewellery trade with Mr Young nearly nine years ago. Mr. Vincent has been with the firm for two years. Mr Young congratulated them on their good example and wished them a safe return. The recipients briefly replied.  -Oamaru Mail, 5/4/1916. 

Word was received yesterday afternoon by Mr and Mrs J. A. Peebles, of Newborough, that their son, Sergeant Harold Peebles, had been killed in action in France on the 14th April. Sergeant Peebles, who was approaching his 23rd birthday, was educated at the North School, where he was dux boy in 1908. On leaving school he became an apprentice to the watchmaker's business in the Oamaru establishment of Messrs G. and T. Young, where he was employed when he enlisted for active service with the Seventeenth Reinforcements. He was animated by a true military spirit from his boyhood days in the Cadets, and in the Territorials he was enthusiastic in his work, attaining the position of sergeant. To that rank he was promoted in the Seventeenths, and was recommended for a commission, but he was so eager to get to the front that he declined to wait for a later contingent in order to receive preparation for a commission, and left with the Seventeenth Reinforcements. He was a fine type of young man, and was highly popular with all who knew him.  -Oamaru Mail, 5/6/1917.

Harold Peebles served in the 2nd Battalion, Otago Infantry Regiment, and died during the Battle of Messines. A paragraph in the Regiment's Official History records a fatal incident on the day of his death, which might have been the cause:

On the morning of the 14th an unlucky enemy shell struck a pile of trench mortar bombs at Ration Dump, alongside La Plus Douve Farm. A terrific explosion followed, PAGE 165and of a working party from the 2nd Battalion four men were killed and one wounded. Subsequently a German official communication stated that in consequence of the traffic observed for several days going to and from a building over which flew the Red Cross flag, they had shelled it and a loud explosion followed; the implied suggestion being that the Red Cross flag was being used to conceal the presence of an ammunition dump. This was put forward as a counterblast to charges made against the enemy at that time of sinking British hospital ships. As a matter of fact, there was a dressing station about 300 yards away over which the Red Cross flag flew, and the enemy was entirely wrong in his assumption that there was any connection between the dump at La Plus Douve Farm and the building which did duty as an advanced dressing station.

Oamaru Cemetery.