Profile

COOLING, George William Andrew
(Service number 24142)

Commemorative certificate, George Cooling — Awarded by the residents of Fairlie in recognition of service in the 1914-1918 war. (Waimate Museum & Archives 2015-001-002)

Aliases
First Rank	Lance Corporal	Last Rank	Sergeant

Birth

Date	15/02/1893	Place of Birth	Woodbury

Enlistment Information

Date	9 February 1916	Age	23 years
Address at Enlistment	Chamberlain, Albury
Occupation	Farm hand for G Stephens, Albury
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status
Next of Kin	George Henry COOLING (father), Cricklewood, Albury, South Canterbury
Religion	Church of England
Medical Information	Height 5 feet 8½ inches. Weight 140 lbs. Chest measurement 33-36 inches. Vaccinated. Small hairy mole lower part right cheek.

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	13th Reinforcements, Canterbury Infantry Battalion, C Company
Date	27 May 1916
Transport	HMNZT 54 Willochra or HMNZT 55 Tofua
Embarked From	Wellington	Destination

Other Units Served With	3rd Entrenching Battalion
Last Unit Served With	NZ Machine Gun Corps, No.1 Company

Military Awards

Campaigns	Western Europe 1916-1918
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	6 June 1919	Reason	Termination of his period of engagement

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

21 January 1917: Wounded in action (gun shot wound). Passed through No.1 NZ Field Ambulance and 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station before being transfered to England to No.1 NZ General Hospital (Brockenhurst) and then NZ Convalescent Hospital (Hornchruch)

Post-war Occupations

Farmer

Death

Date	2 November 1969	Age	76 years
Place of Death	Waimate
Cause
Notices	Timaru Herald, 3 November 1969
Memorial or Cemetery	Waimate Lawn Cemetery
Memorial Reference	RSA Block 16, Plot 929
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

George William Andrew Cooling was the older son of George Henry and Mary (née Aitken) Cooling.

George was initially posted to the 1st Canterbury Company on arrival at Sling Camp, England in July 1916, but transferred to No.1 Machine Gun Company. He recieved a gun shot wound in action on 21 Juanuary 1917, resulting in a transfer back to England for three months convalescence. He returned to service as an instructor at the Machine Gun Depot, holding ther rank of Temporary Staff Sergeant, before returning to France in March 1918, where he relinquished his appointment and spent a short period with the 3rd Entrenching Battalion before returning to serve with the Machine Gun Corps until the end of thew war.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database (9 September 2015); NZ Defence Force Personnel Records (Archives NZ Ref. AABK 18805 W5537 0038424) [15 January 2017]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [23 December 2016]; Timaru Herald, 3 & 4 November 1969 (Timaru District Library) [18 January 2017]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Tony Rippin (South Canterbury Museum)

Currently Assigned to

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