CHAPLAIN'S DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 133, 8 June 1942, Page 7

CHAPLAIN'S DEATH

Advice received from the Admiralty by Mrs. J. H. Capill, of Bradley Street, Paeroa. states that the. death must be presumed of her son, the Rev. W. G. Parker, who was chaplain in the battleship Prince of Wales, sunk in the Far East by Japanese air forces. Mr. Parker was, born in Wellington in 1905 and after attending the Paeroa District High School entered the Public Service in Wellington. Later he. went to St. John's College and Auckland University, graduating Master of Arts and obtaining his Licentiate in Theology He was ordained at St. Paul's ProCathedral, Wellington, in 1928, and remained there as curate until he went to Great Britain in 1931. He was at Leeds for 15 months and then went to Hove in 1933. In 1935 he entered the Royal Navy and after being -stationed for a short time at Chatham, was sent to the China Station. He came to New Zealand on furlough in 1938, returned to England, and was at a Fleet Air Arm station when, war was declared. He was appointed to the Prince of Wales when she was commissioned, saw action in the first engagement against the Bismarck, and was In the battleship during the historic meeting between Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt.