IDENTIFIED AFTER MANY YEARS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3776, 5 April 1928, Page 3

IDENTIFIED AFTER MANY YEARS.

STRANGE STORY OF EX-NEW ZEALAND SOLDIER. I ' S- ’ The unknown inmate of the ;Sydnew Hospital for eleven years, who has now been identified as Thomas George McQuay, an ex-New Zealand soldier. The official records show that, the patient was found wandering in a London street during the, war, dressed in an~ Australian soldier’s hat and civilian clothes. He informed the authorities that he was an Australian soldier but apart from that meagre information his mind was a blank. The Australian Repatriation Department disowned him, declaring that a search of the Australian Imperial Force enlistments failed to identify him as an Australian.

'Recently the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, issued a circular fully describing the unknown man, together with a'photograph;,/The matter eventually came under the notice of the Base Records Office of New Zealand and a photograph taken of the unknown soldier in the hospital at Sydney and sent to Wellington for identification in New Zealand, was forwarded to Stratford and handed to Mrs Robert MeQuay, Orlando St. Mrs MeQuay immediately identified it as a photograph of her son, Thomas George Me Quay. She says that, though he has changed considerably since she last saw him in 1915, he is, without doubt, her son.

The New Zealand Base Records file states that MeQuay went into camp on February 16, 1915, and embarked on June 13 of the same year. He landed in Egypt and on September 19, 1915 joined his unit —the Auckland Infantry Battalion —in the Dardanelles. On November 2, 1915, MeQuay was admitted to the (Field Ambulance at iMudros suffering from bronchitis. In April 1916, he embarked' on the Franconia at Port Said for France; and in July, 1916, at Armentieres, failed to report. Since then the New Zealand Defence Department has had no knowledge of his movements.