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New Zealand, WWII Appointments, Promotions, Transfers and Resignations

Fold3 Image - James Stellin's temporary commission to rank of Pilot Officer
Do you have family members from New Zealand who served in World War II? Come explore Fold3’s collection New Zealand, WWII Appointments, Promotions, Transfers and Resignations.

As part of the British Commonwealth, New Zealand entered World War II alongside the United Kingdom, and about 140,000 New Zealand men and women would serve over the course of the war. This Fold3 collection contains information about appointments, promotions, transfers, and resignations of personnel in the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces (including army, air force, and navy) during WWII. The information was extracted from the New Zealand government newspaper, the New Zealand Gazette.

Information you can find in this collection about an individual may include the following:

  • Name
  • Rank
  • Date of appointment, promotion, transfer, or resignation
  • Regiment

If you don’t have New Zealand family members who served during World War II, you can instead learn more about the careers of notable WWII New Zealand servicemen and women, such as:

  • James Stellin, a pilot who avoided crashing into a French village at the expense of his own life.
  • Te Moananui-a-Kiwa Ngarimu, the first Maori to be awarded (posthumously) the Victoria Cross.
  • Porokoru Patapu Pohe, a Maori and one of the Allied prisoners who took part in what became known as “The Great Escape” in March 1944; he was later caught and executed.
  • Bernard Freyberg, commander of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force and the 2nd New Zealand Division; he later served as the 7th Governor-General of New Zealand.
  • Frances Ida “Kitty” Kain, one of New Zealand’s most senior female military leaders during the war.
  • Howard Kippenberger, popular commander of the 2nd New Zealand Division (following Bernard Freyberg); he lost the lower portion of both legs at the Battle of Monte Cassino in March 1944.

Get started searching or browsing the New Zealand, WWII Appointments, Promotions, Transfers and Resignations on Fold3!

5 Comments

  1. Shirley Briggs says:

    Thank you for this.
    Not New Zealanders, although I understand there were many.
    I knew of Many Rhodesians who died.”
    I lost a close relative Donald Mundell in WW2. “Missing presumed dead”. He was a South African from Cathcart ( a farming area where he farmed) in the Northern Cape province. I was a Rhodesian born and grew up there.
    I am now a New Zealander..
    I often have the odd contact with the Rhodesian Services association.
    Thank you again Shirley Briggs
    Thank you again
    Shirley Briggs

  2. Hello, My uncle Richard Joseph Schmoker died when the Dorschester sank in the Atlantic. Record show some bodies were buried in Greenland. How does one find out if there relative could possibly have been one of those interred there?
    We do have a stone with “lost at sea” at the family plot in Moberly Missouri.

  3. Mike says:

    For many years we have been trying to find the list of POWs who were repatriated from Keelung, Formosa (Taiwan) on appx 9-12th September 1945. We believe there were appx 108 men who were too ill to travel on the aircraft carriers USS Santee and USS Block Island, so were left behind to await the arrival of the hospital ship HMNZHS Maunganui. We have found the list of the men who embarked on her in Manila to continue the journey to Wellington, but cannot find the joiners at Formosa or indeed those who disembarked in New Zealand. We have tried the National Archives at London, New Zealand, Canberra, and NARA, and the Royal Navy museum at Portsmouth, UK. The best we have come up with is copies of Maunganui weekly newsletter for the journey, named ‘What Knots’ which lists articles about some of the men. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated. Mike

  4. my great grandfather John D. Lindsay from Sampson County, NC was wounded at chancerville, va.

  5. was john bass of sampson county in this battle?