ANDERSON, Frank William
(Service number 7/3)
| First Rank | Trooper | Last Rank |
|---|
Birth
| Date | 03/08/1884 | Place of Birth |
|---|
Enlistment Information
| Date | 15 August 1914 | Age | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Address at Enlistment | Brown St, Timaru | ||
| Occupation | Labourer | ||
| Previous Military Experience | |||
| Marital Status | Single | ||
| Next of Kin | John J. Anderson (father) St. Andrew’s South Canterbury | ||
Military Service
| Served with | NZ Armed Forces | Served in | Army |
|---|
Embarkation Information
| Body on Embarkation | Main Body | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit, Squadron, or Ship | Canterbury Mounted Rifles | ||
| Date | 16 October 1914 | ||
| Transport | Tahiti or Athenic | ||
| Embarked From | Lyttelton | Destination | Suez, Egypt |
| Other Units Served With | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Last Unit Served With | |||
Military Awards
| Campaigns | Egyptian 1914, Balkans (Gallipoli & Mudros) 1915 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Service Medals | 1914-15 Star, British War Medal; Victory Medal | ||
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 |
Death
| Date | 1967 | Age | 83 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Place of Death | |||
| Cause | |||
| Memorial or Cemetery | |||
| New Zealand Memorials | |||
Biographical Notes
Frank was born in Sandietown, Timaru, 3 August 1884. He was the first son and second child of John James and Julia (nee BISHOP) Anderson, both of whom had emigrated from England as teenagers in the 1870s. John James was a wheelwright in Timaru for many years.
Frank was educated at Waitemataitai and St. Andrew’s Schools. When he enlisted to serve in the Army in August 1914, he was the first of three of his brothers to do so. At the time Frank was single and had been employed as a carpenter by W. Shields at Waimataitai.
He left New Zealand on 16 October 1914 as part of the Main Body and was a Trooper in the Canterbury Mounted Rifles. There seems some doubt as to which ship he was on but it is stated that it was either the “Tahiti” or the “Athenic” – perhaps they left New Zealand about the same. He arrived at Alexandria later that year, on the 3 December.
Frank served at Gallipoli. While fighting in the Dardanelles on 22 August 1915 he suffered a gunshot wound to his left shoulder and forearm – resulting in a compound fracture - and was invalided out to Mudros and then to St. Thomas’s Hospital, London.
The wound proved difficult to heal and no further active service is recorded in his Record of Service papers. He was overseas for nearly two years and was invalided back to New Zealand on the “S.S. Willochna” in September 1916 and admitted to Queen Mary Hospital in Hanmer to convalesce. Three months later he was discharged from the Army and it was noted that he was “no longer physically fit for war service on account of wounds received in action”.
Frank settled in Epsom Avenue, Auckland. Whether his war injury affected his ability to earn a living as a carpenter isn’t known. He never married and died in 1967 aged 83 years.
Sources
Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database (August 2014); SCRoll submission and biography by L Menchi, 25 September 2018
External Links
Related Documents
Researched and Written by
Carol Bell, SC branch NZSG; Tony Rippin, South Canterbury Museum (based on biographical work by L Menchi)
Currently Assigned to
Not assigned.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.