ON SERVICE.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16309, 5 September 1918, Page 8

ON SERVICE.

PERSONAL NOTES ABOUT NEW ZEALANDERS. (FBOH OTTR OWN CORHESrONDENT.) LONDON, July 9. Captain J. Guthrie, N.Z.M.C., lias been posted to No. 2 Now Zealand General Hospital, at Walton-on-Thames. Major R. T. Bruce, of the Canterbury Mounted Rifles, is graded G.S.O. 3, and is acting as brigade-major with a British formation. v.. ' Captain J. B. Le Mottee, Canterbury Regiment, is commanding the 3rd Entrenching Battalion, in place of Captain S. J. E. Closey, M.C., and is given the rank of major. Lieutenant J. M. C. McLeod, M.0., Canterbury, takes command of nn Entrenching Company, with the rank of captain. Captain L. Potter, N.Z.S.C., is appointed adjutant, 2nd Battalion Otago .Regiment, in place of Captain C. JVI. Littlejohn. Lieutenant R. B. Spiers, Canterbury Regiment, and Captain D. J. Wells, Otago Regiment, arc declared unfit for general service for twclvo months, and aro seconded accordingly. Lieut.-Colonel D. B. Blair, D.5.0., M.C., has been over on fourteen days' leave from the Division. He left New Zealand with the Main Body in 1914 as adjutant of the Canterbury Mounted Rifles.. He was transferred to the infantry when the 4th Brigade was formed, and is now commanding .the Ma- , r chine-gun Corps. Mrs Blair (nee Mdlle. Gadrat) has just returned from five months' convalescence at Tours and Acheres_, after a severe nervous breakdown. She was in Paris during the Gotha raids, and the long-range bombardment. She has now taken a flat in Langham street, W. ! Captain A. S. Mnir, Wellington Regiment, having been appointed D.A.Q.M.G. to the Division, is promoted major. He is succeeded in the ; adjutancy of the Ist Wellington Bat-! talion by Lieutenant W. G. Salmond, eon of Sir John Salmond. Major Muir is a son of Mr A. L. Muir, editor of the '•Poverty Bay Herald," Gisborne. Lieutenant A/ Bongard, M.0., has relinquished the appointment of Brigade Intelligence Officer to the 3rd Brigade, on account of sickness. ' On account of the sickness of Lieut.- , Colonel W. S. Austin, D.S.O.j R. 8., Major N. P. Shepherd is promoted Lieut.-Colonel. •Major P. H. Buck, D.S.O. (Ohaeawai) and Major W. S. Sinclair (Millerton), both of the N.Z.M.C., have been seconded for clinical experience. Captain W. G. Tweedy, M.8.E., •'gnartermaster at No. 1 N.Z. General Hospital, Brockenhurst, has been appointed secretary to the N.Z. Officere' Club in London. Bishop; Neiigan, Rector of Ford, has been, appointed to a chaplain's commission for eoiscopal duty with the N.Z.E.F; * Mr E. P. V. Sealy (Timaru), -who has been in France for over two years with the Service de Sante Militaire, has been ordered to Salonica. *■ Private G. F. Neiigan, N.Z.M.C.. serving in . Europe, has been appointed Chaplain to the Forces, 4th CI; Mr • Neiigan waa a Church of England clergyman in New Zealand. July 12. Lieutenant H. B. Russell, R.F.A. (Canterbury), is promoted captain, and remains seconded, presumably with the R.A.F. Lieutenant Russell, while flying with his cousin, Lieutenant J. R. Donnistoun, over the German lines two years'ago, was brought down and taken prisoner. He returned to England in April this year after internment in Switzerland. Sub-Lieutenant W. Darling, R.N.R. ' (Rangiora), is posted to H.M.S. Gipsy. Before getting his commission in the R.N.R., he served in the ranks of the ■ King's Royal Rifles. Mr Robert C. Parata, who has been serving with the Maori Battalion since the beginning of the war, has now come over to England to qualify for a commission, and is at Trinity College, Cam--4 bridge. He is a grandson of the late Hon. T. Parata, M.L.C. Three tfew Zealand officers in H.M.S. Wahine Jiave recently been promoted, viz.: Eng.-Lieut.-Commander Ernest E. Low, R.N.R. (Nelson), to Eng.-Com-mander; Eng.-Lieut. Alexander Tough (Dunedin), to Eng.-Lieut.-Commander; . an d A.-Eng.-Lieut. Frank N. Hesketh ■ (Auckland), to Eng.-Lieut; Sergeant L. E. Vernazoni, D.C.M. (Christchurch), A.1.F., is being invalided home. In Australia before the war, he at once enlisted, and was at Galli-

poli. He has beer, wounded afc least three times, m October, 1917, dangerously so. Last September ho won the D.C.M. Private J. Martin, West Riding Regiment (Christchurch) is suffering from gas-shell jyoisoning. Br. Cecil L. Donne, son of Captain T. E. Donne, secretary of the New Zealand Government Office in London, has attested -with the N.Z. Medical Corps, with the rank of lieutenant. Lieutenant T. J. Pemberton (Dunedin), brother of Mr O. B. Pemberton, secretary of the Canterbury A. and P. Association, has been commanding a oompany of the Bedfordshire Regiment with the temporary rank of captain. Lance-Corporal Alan Jordan, son of the Under-Secretary for Justice, has just been discharged from the K.11.R.C., with which lie has served for three years past. Corporal Jordan won the Military Medal in 1916, and at the beginniitg of the following year was invalided from tho front. After re covering lie again went back to Flanders, but before long developed trench fever, and has since been in hospibd in England. His brother. Private Noel Jordan, N.Z.E.F., was killed at Courcelette, where his battalion went over -n company with Corporal Jordan's battalion of the K.R.&. Mr Noel L. S. Pownall (Wellington), who joined the Artists' Rifles about three years ago, and afterwards got bis commission in the R.U'.A., is now in the Machine-gun Corps Infantry. He is in tho same brigade as Major J. Wilfred Findlay. July 10. Until lately, Eng.-Sub-Lieutenant B. J. Rasmussen, H.M.S. Diadem, was in the troopship Ulimaroa, but he joined the Navy at the termination of the latter's last voyage. Lieutenant W. A Humphreys, Dra-,-goon Guards (Christchurch), is. in London, a patient at-the Lady Evelyn Mason Hospital, where, he expects to bo for some little while. The following promotions in the R.A.F. are gazetted: Lieutenants J. D. Canning (Hawke's Bay), L. M. Isitt, and C. H. Drew (New Plymouth), to be captains. Lieutenant T. L. Steele, R.A.F., son or Mrs A. W. Steele, Papanui road, Christchurch, is missing. . Formerly L.C. N.Z.M.G.C., Lieutenant Steele left New Zealand with the Fifth Reinforcements in June, 1916, and qualified for his "wings" iu 1916. He saw a good deal of service in Egypt and Palestine. At the time. of enlistment he was a student at the Agricultural College, Lincoln. A New Zealander serving with the South African forces is Sergeant C. R. Digby, who Zealand for South Africa in 1901', and was in the Union Department of Defence, at Pretoria, when war was declared. In German •West he was on the staff of General H.Q., and he is now -with the Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport, in , France. At the moment he has come ' to England for a fortnight's leave. , July 23. Second-Lieutenant D. G. Laurenson, ( Cavalry Reserve, and Secpnd-Lieuten- . ant G. G. Rich, K.E.H., have been ' promoted lieutenants. They both gained tlieir commissions from the : N.Z.E.F. about the same time, having . been members. of the Canterbury ] Mounted Rifles. Lieutenant Lauren- . son was taken prisoner by the' Ger mans on the Western front early this year. Lieutenant Rich is with K.E.H. After a considerable period at sea, Eng.-LieUt.-Commander W. Earnshaw, R.N. (late of Wellington Technical College) has shore duty. Ho is superintending the building of a destroyer at a Northern base. Mjr Will Hope, well-known for some years as a cartoonist in New Zealand, is now in the Ist Battalion Australian Infantry, and is expecting to go to the Western front shortly. Mr Hope left ; Now Zealand in 1915 for America, and - he had a good deal of experience ] throughout tho States from San Fran- , cisco to New York. He was con- < nected at different times with the [ "New York Globe," the "St. Louis Post and Dispatch," and the Cleveland ] "Leader News." At the beginning of ( this year he enlisted in America for j service with the British Army, with , an understanding that he would be j transferred by the British authorities j to the A.I.F. Instead, he was drafted 1 to the Middlesex Regiment, and spent; jj five months in training with them be- j fore he succeeded in getting his trans- r fer. . Captain J. Renfrew White, c N.Z.M.C., has translated a very important French book on war surgery, which has been published in English. , The editor is Colonel Sir Robert N. i Jones, the celebrated orthopaedic surgeon. Captain White, who comes j. from Dunedin, and studied at the Mid- . dlesex Hospital, served for two years fl

V before transferring to the N.Z.E.F. At the beginning of 1914 he was at the Orthopaedic Hospital, Gfc. PortJand street W. B. Bridger, A.S.C. (Uunedin) now at a divisional reststation in * ranee. He has been at tiie front with the British Army almost continuously since the beginning Vat M l V n P has the 1914 Star. C.M.M. H. \Y. Cocks, R.N.Y.R. (Kcmuera), has been stationed at Gibraltar for the last fourteen months, borne weeks ago his vessel had a sucnnri nr . e " Co V nt( ; r a submarine, Cocks has just drawn a substantial share of the prize monev. ® r emncr, R.G.A. recently slightly wounded on the Western front, is now quite ass* a 18 in cMnp oEai " in Captain Donald Simson, fonnerly of t-ne in./.£,.!•has been very busilv engaged for the last few months offfr SmS M h \r C ° mrades of tte Great Wo l Hassey and Sir Joseph Ward were guests of the Executive Committee, at the .Army and Navy Hud, on Friday evening. Lieut.-Colonel J. S. Purdy, D.S 0 Australian Medical Corps, Vs mg to Australia after almost four years active service. Colonel Purdy went to iMew Zealand in 1899, and while with the ; S s n l Ar ew Zealand Contingents ' So " fch Africa. After the declaration of peace he was sent by the Imperial Government to Dundee, Natal, to take the place of Dr. Galbraith, who had been called to London to give evidence against Colonel Arthur Lynch Six months later Colonel Purdy came to London and succeeded Lieut.-Colonei Eugene 0 Neill (now of the No. 2 N.Z. General Hospital) as resident surgeon of the London Lock Hospital While- there he took the R.Aji.C College course and qualified for his D.P.H. at Cambridge. He then praotised for a short period in Liverpool before being sent by the Foreign Office to the Egyptian Quarantine Service, which was then under the presidency of the late Dr. Marc A. Buffer. For nearly two years. Colonel Purdy .vas stationed at Port Said, and he .vifcnessed at close quarters a good deal ot the exciting events incidental to the Russo-Japanese War, the rebellion ra the lemen, and the trouble of ihe Denshawi and Akaba. Part of his duty was the medical charge of the hospitals at Hedjaz Pilgrimage Camp at El Tor, Sinai, and incidentally he acted as correspondent of the "Daily, Mail.' From 1907-10, Colonel Purdy was Health _ Officer at Auckland, a peiiod associated with, the sewerasce systems at Onehunga, Whangarei, Hamilton, Cambridge, Te Aroha. and: itotorua, and the water supply at He then became Chief Health Officer in Tasmania, a post' which carried with it the Chief ln-'i ppectorship of Factories and administration of Wages Boards. In 1913 Colonel Purdy accepted/the appoint"Metropolitan Medical Officer i of Health at Sydney, where he was responsible for the health of 845 000 people. _ That post he will resume* rn his arrival m Australia, and during his time in Europe he has studied a ?"?, er of recent aspects of municipal health. Colonel Purdv left for ihe Jront •with "the Main Body, A.I.F. j