SOLDIER IDENTIFIED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 144, 29 March 1928, Page 6

SOLDIER IDENTIFIED

MAN WHO LOST HIS MEMORY. ELEVEN YEARS, fs HOSPITAL. (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, March 28. A dramatic sequel to a soldier's disappearance for over 13 years occurred on the night when an unknown soldier, who for the past 11 years has been in the Sydney Hospital suffering from loss of memory, was identified by a photograph as Private Thomas George McQuay, son of Mrs Robert McQuay, of Orlando Street, Stratford. McQuay, who was a carpenter at Stratford, left with the Fifth Reinforcements in 1915. From the day he sailed his relatives never heard a word of him. His name did not appear in anv casualty list, and no record of him could ever be found. Constant inquiry brought no result, and his family despaired of ever seeing him again. However, last week the attention of the relatives at Stratford were arrested by a cablegram from Sydney, which stated that the Returned Soldiers' League in New. South Wales was trying to establish the identity of an unknown patient in a mental hospital in Sydney, where he had been tor eleven years suffering from loss of memory. The officials said, that they believed the unknown soldier was a New Zealander and were communicating with the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, ■ . , ' ■ McQuay's family forwarded a photograph to the right quarter in case it might help to solve the mystery. The sequei from Sydney on Monday night in tne form of a Press Association cablegram which stated that the unknown soldier had been identified as Private McQuay, of Taranaki. There can be little doubt that "McQuay, of Taranaki," is Tliomaa George McQuay, of Stratford. Since the presence of an unknown soldier in the Callan Park' Mental Hospital in Sydney became known hundreds of anxious inquiries had been received by the New Souths Wales authorities from fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers all over Australia who fancied he might be a long-lost member of the family." The official records show that a patient dressed in an Australian soldier's bat and civilian clothes was found wandering in a 'London street at the height of the war. He told the authorities that he was an Australian soldier. Beyond that he could remember nothing. He has been in Callan Park Hospital for 11 years and the Repatriation Department had disowned him, declaring that a search of the whole of the Australian imperial Force enlistments failed to identify him as an Australian.

UNDOUBTEDLY HER SON. IDENTIFIED BY STRATFORD WOMAN.

NEW PLYMOUTH, March 28. A photograph, stated to have .been taken of the unknown soldier in the Mental Hospital in Sydney, and forwarded to "Wellington for identification in New Zealand, was brought to Stratford this evening, and handed to Mrs Robert McQuay, Orlando Siteet. She immediately identified it as a photograph of her son, .Thomas George McQuay. ! , She says that though he has changed cpnsiderably since she last saw him in 1915 j he is without doubt her son.