Profile

SQUIRE, Gustave Wood
(Service number 29596)

Aliases Gustav?
First Rank Private Last Rank

Birth

Date 10 March 1895 Place of Birth St Andrews, New Zealand

Enlistment Information

Date Age
Address at Enlistment
Occupation Sheep farmer
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status
Next of Kin George Wood Squire (father), Fairview, Timaru, New Zealand
Religion
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with NZ Armed Forces Served in Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Unit, Squadron, or Ship 19th Reinforcements Specialist Machine-Gun Section
Date 15 November 1916
Transport Maunganui or Tahiti
Embarked From Wellington, NZ Destination Plymouth, England
Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date 163 August 1976 Age
Place of Death Timaru, New Zealand
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Before the outbreak of World War I Squire worked on his father’s sheep farm at Fairview, south of Timaru. He enlisted for the Army in June 1916 aged 21. On his final leave before heading to war he was given a send-off at Fairview School, where he was presented with a wrist watch as a memento of home. Squire completed his New Zealand training at Featherston Camp and left for war as part of the 19th Reinforcements aboard the Maunganui in November 1916.

Squire served in the Machine Gun Company while on the Western Front. During the war he unfortunately spent a lot of time in military hospitals being treated for illness, including a period in March 1917 for mumps. In the tough winter following the terrible battle of Passchendaele Squire must have been in the sodden frontlines because he was admitted for trench foot. Trench foot is a painful condition involving tissue damage that afflicted soldiers in the trenches since they spent so much time with their feet in mud or water.

Squire survived the war but had another brush with illness after peace was declared when he caught the flu during the Spanish Influenza Epidemic. Thankfully he survived the deadly flu and returned to New Zealand in 1919. Squire and other South Canterbury men returned to Timaru in May 1919 aboard a special train and were given an excited welcome from a large crowd of locals. In the years following he returned to the land and bought a farm near Cave. In World War II he served in the local Home Guard unit and helped train men on the machine gun.

Sources

Cenotaph (20 October 2014)

External Links

Related Documents

Researched and Written by

Tony Rippin (South Canterbury Museum)

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

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