Herbert Morley joined the 2nd Battalion of the Otago Infantry Regiment in France on April 24, 1916. The following September he and his Battalion were waiting in the trenches to take their part in the "Big Push," the eventually failed and costly Battle of the Somme. On September 14, the day before the scheduled attack, he was wounded by German shrapnel in a shoulder and hospitalised. His wound may have been a well-disguised blessing, keeping him in hospital for three weeks and keeping him from joining the roughly 1200 New Zealanders who died in the fighting, many with no known graves. Herbert's Company, the 8th, was "seriously depleted in strength under the blasts of machine-gun fire which swept their ranks" on the morning of October 1st, according to the Otagos' Official History.
The 2nd Battalion went into battle at Messines on June 7, 1917, numbering 798 men. Nineteen mines were exploded under German positions to open the battle and the New Zealanders climbed out of their trenches and marched towards the devastation. Seventy seven Otago men died on that first day. Herbert Morley was one of them.
FOR THE EMPIRE'S CAUSE
DEATHS
MORLEY. — On June 7, killed while in action "Somewhere in France," Herbert Morley (10th Reinforcements). -Otago Daily Times, 23/6/1917.
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