N.Z. SOLDIER IN JUGOSLAVIA

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23849, 19 January 1943, Page 6

N.Z. SOLDIER IN JUGOSLAVIA

OFFICIALLY “DEAD” BUT STILL FIGHTING

RELATIVES’ CONFIDENCE JUSTIFIED

The faith of Mrs J. Denvir, Christchurch, and her mother-in-law that Corporal Jack Denvir was alive, though officially “dead,” was justified yesterday by the publication of a cable message in “The, Press” stating that, hA had spoken over the secret radio st£H tion of the People’s Freedom Army in Jugoslavia. Until then his wife and mother had heard nothing of him since the official report last May of his death in a prisoner-of-war camp, A death certificate had been issued and his wife had received more than £.IOO from Corporal Denvir’s former employer, Messrs D. H. Brown and Son, Ltd., on its production. The firm pays £1 a week into an account for each of its employees serving in the forces and, when Corporal Denvir’s death had apparently been established, the amount to his credit was paid to her. The company has now made arrangements to resume payments into the accounts, including the amounts unpaid since his death was notified.

Corporal Denvir enlisted on the day recruiting was opened in 1939, and left New Zealand with the Ist Echelon. He was taken prisoner during the fighting at Corinth in the Greek campaign on April 28, 1941. He was kept prisoner until November, when he escaped, only to be recaptured five days later. He wrote to friends at Christchurch, saying that he had been put “behind bars" as a result. He made a second escape from the prison camp at Maribor the following December, and joined General Mikhailovitch’s patriot army in Slovenia. However, his'mother was advised from a German source that her son had died, and a similar report from an Italian, source was received by his wife in May last year. Before coming to Christchurch, Corporal Denvir was employed on the farm of his father-in-law (Mr F. Musson, Karamea). His wife and three children, one of whom was born after he left New Zealand, are living at 92 Durha'b street. Mrs Denvir, sen., lives at 205 Salisbury street. Corporal Denvir, who is 29 years of age, was a forward in the Sydenham Rugby League Football Club’s senior team.

The message from London gave the name as “Denver," but said the man ■was in the 20th Battalion of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. His friends are certain that there could not be a man of the same name in the same battalion who had been imprisoned in the same camp and taken prisoner on the same day.