Profile

O'CONNOR, Michael
(Service number 69875)

Aliases
First Rank	Private	Last Rank	Private

Birth

Date	10/07/1887	Place of Birth	Timaru

Enlistment Information

Date	22 September 1917	Age	29 years 2 months
Address at Enlistment	Southampton Street, Hastings
Occupation	Driver
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	Mrs B. O'CONNOR (mother0, Southampton Street, Hastings
Religion	Roman Catholic
Medical Information	Height 5 feet 9 inches. Weight 166 lbs. Chest measurement 34-38 inchesComplexion fair. Eyes blue. Hair brown. Sight, hearing and colour vision all normal. Limbs and chest well formed. Full movement of joints. Heart and lungs normal. Illness - rheumatism. Free from hernia, haemorrhoids, inveterate or contagious skin disease. Varicocele - moderate left. Varicose veins - slight both legs. Vaccination mark (left). Good bodily and mental health. Slight defect - varicose veins - but not sufficient to cause rejection. No fits. Class A.

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	36th Reinforcements A Company
Date	23 April 1918
Transport	Willochra
Embarked From	Wellington	Destination	Southampton, England

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With	Canterbury Infantry Regiment

Military Awards

Campaigns	Western European
Service Medals	British War Medal; Victory Medal
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	23 September 1919	Reason	Termination of period of engagement

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

19 June 1918 admitted to Government Hospital at Suez, with diarrhoea - satisfactory; discharged on 25 June and readmitted on 25 June, with dysentery.

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date	16 October 1965	Age	78 years
Place of Death	Auckland
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

This Michael O'CONNOR (69875) was born at Timaru in 1896, the son of Maurice and Bridget (nee GORMAN) O'CONNOR. His father Maurice died in 1906; his mother Bridget was later of Hastings, Hawke's Bay, with Michael's sister, Sarah Jane O'CONNOR, who married Herbert Gregory PLOWMAN in 1916 and was living in Hastings. Several of the family finished up living in the Hawke's Bay area. Michael himself was living and working as a driver at Hastings at the time of his enlistment, and he appears to be back there after the war. After 9 years at Gleniti School, Michael had left at the age of 14 to go to go to work. While at Trentham, on 2 March 1918, he was confined to barracks for 14 days and forfeited four days pay for being absent without leave. He commenced active service on 16 April 1918 and even then he managed to complete one year and 126 days of service overseas, before embarking for the return to New Zealand on 26 August 1919 per the "Geissen". His brother, Daniel O'CONNOR (11/111), also served in WWI. The next-of-kin at Michael's death - Mr M. SWANSON - was likely a nephew, since his sister mary married William Robert SWANSON in 1912.

Sources

Cenotaph Database [04 December 2014]; School Admission Registers (South Canterbury Branch NZSG) [2013]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.