SOLDIERS OF THE EMPIRE
ISBN: 978-0-473-15889-7
Published By Legion Press
Printed by Rosetown Print.
Reviewed By Alistair Kerr
For a reviewer, this is something of an unusual book, in that, while its content would clearly only appeal to a limited reader audience, it is I believe, a book that needed to be written, because it deals with the history of a small, but important piece of New Zealand’s social fabric. For the local reader, it is interesting to note that from the several mentions of Te Awamutu, our town obviously had a “high profile” in the life and activities of the Legion.
The Legion of Frontiersmen was founded in Britain in 1904 and was a movement designed to attract and use men whose experience reflected active military service, hunting, ‘roughing it’ and exploring in wild places. Its ethos reflected pride in, and service to the Imperial ideal popularised at the time by such writers as Rudyard Kipling. Some of its early members included such notables as General Jan Smuts, Captain Scott. Lieutenant Oates, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Lord Kitchener.
The book, mainly chronological in order tells of the Legion’s founding in New Zealand in 1911, of its spread around the country and of the service to both country and community by its members. There are detailed accounts of members’ achievements, especially in World War One in which , of New Zealand V.C. wines, seven were Legion members as was Sgt J.D. Hinton in World War Two’.
There is a very detailed record of the Legion’s post and in-between-war periods with information about awards, activities and deaths of members. A feature of this section is the great number of ‘period’ photographs, which really enliven and expand the text. One which caught my eye was of the Legion’s 1945 Conference in Te Awamutu which shows around 150+ members! Another ’local’ link includes a picture of the Legion’s hall in Te Rahu road, now occupied by the Bridge Club. There are many accounts of Legion members giving service in Search and Rescue operations, crowd and parking control and, in the latter roles, readers will remember them in their distinctive uniform of black tunics, fawn pants and “lemon squeezer” hat.
Quite clearly an enormous amount of time and effort has been put into the research and compilation of this book and its authors are to be congratulated for their efforts.
It deserves its place as a useful addition to the social history of New Zealand.
SOLDIERS OF THE EMPIRE
M.R.G SUBRITZKY
M.D SMITH
V.J BAKER
At the 2009 annual Conference it was decided that the Command should have produced a book detailing as much of the history of the New Zealand Command as was available.
The book was to be available for purchase at the 2011 annual Conference, as this Conference was to be the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the formation of the first Command in New Zealand which was in 1911.
This particular publication is the end result and is written in the form of a chronology of major events that occurred in various parts of the Legion nation and along with this, contains a lot of detail about the people of the Legion over the century. There are details of the recipients of every known Legion award in New Zealand and when they received their awards. One will also find some groundbreaking information on the large part the Legion took in the Gallipoli campaign in WW1.
The book culminates in a large publication of some 275 pages in A4 size, well worthy of adding to any military historians library.
