MAORI HERO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1943, Page 3

MAORI HERO

LIEUTENANT NGARIMU, V.C. HARD WORKER & FEARLESS I hT BATTLE. BRIEF BUT OUTSTANDING CAREER. (Official War Correspondent. N.Z.E.F.) CAIRO, June 5.

Second Lieutenant Ngarimu, the first Maori to win the Victoria Cross it is the sixth awarded to a New Zealander in this war—commanded an East Coast platoon on a vital feature in the Matmata Hills from which the enemy could have stopped the whole of the New Zealanders’ outflanking movement round the Mareth Line. Both of the only two men of Ngarimu’s platoon who are still with the battalion were on leave when the award became known this afternoon. Through the rest of the battalion there seemed to be a feeling of quiet pride, mingled with deep regret at the loss ot a courageous soldier and a growing loader of their race. A great many of the men of his company had known him as a boy on his father’s farm at Ruatoria, at school and college, or as a soldier of the Maori Battalion since February, 1940. He went to England with the battalion and was with it through Greece and Crete, in the Western Desert, and from Bardia to the Tabaga Gap. The Army records show that he was 24 when he was killed, but he is believed to have been several years younger. FIGHTING ANCESTRY. Ngarimu’s family have for tens of generations held a high place in one of the greatest of the Maoris fighting sub-tribes, the Aitanga a Mate of the East Coast’s Ngati-Porous. For centuries they have shown in battle the same great and fearless qualities which the men of the Maori Battalion saw in Ngarimu. He was calm and fearless almost to a point of recklessness. A senior officer of the battalion said he had never known a harder job than Ngarimu was given, nor had he seen tougher fighting. “I saw him after he had been wounded twice and still under intense fire; he was quite calm and collected, and he just refused to leave his platoon,’’ the officer said. Often jocularly told by brother officers that he would make a better parson than officer, Ngarimu was widely respected as a quiet, clean-liv-ing man. Even while, at school he took a keen and serious interest in his people. Though considerably younger than many men in his company, he accepted his responsibility calmly and easily. COMMAND AS PRIVATE. Early in his battle experience, while still a private, he had to take over the command of his platoon in the midst of fierce, confused fighting in Crete, and though suffering from three wounds which normally would have put him out of action, he continued to command it till he was taken to work in the battalion’s intelligence section. In the weeks after Greece and Crete, when the intelligence section had to complete months of work in days, senior officers saw in Ngarimu what they called his “guts for work.” For weeks he worked late into the night with only a few hours for rest. His reward came in the Western Desert early in the winter of 1941. when he was sent to take his commission, which he receive! as a second lieutenant on Anzac Day, 1942. He returned to his battalion in the following November, first as a platoon commander, then as intelligence officer, and again as platoon commander till the time of his death. During the time he was away from the battalion his older brother, Harry Ngarimu. was wounded in the fighting at El Alamein and returned to New Zealand. Only once previously in New Zealand military history has an officer been awarded the Victoria Cross. He was Captain Charles Upham.

LARGE HU PLANNED AWARD HAILED BY MAORI RACE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Juno 7. The ..late Second-Lieutenant Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Ngarimu was a direct lineal descendant of Tamateamaitawhiti, the chieftain who brought the canoe Takitamu, one of the seven in the migration, to New Zealand from Hawaiki. Lieutenant Ngarimu was the elder of two sons of Mr and Mrs H. Ngarimu, and there is one married sister. He left New Zealand with the Second Echelon, in one of the first three platoons of the Maori Battalion drawn from east coast tribes. His first name —Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is translated as “The Great Ocean of»Kiwa,” which is the Maori name for the Pacific Ocean.

If he had given his correct age when he enlisted in February, 1940, he would not have sailed with the second echelon. He gave his date of birth as April 7, 1918, making it a year before the actual date. In this he had the support of his father, who was recruiting Maoris for the purpose of forming a battalion. Mr Ngarimu regarded the enlistment of his own son as essential to the success of the recruiting rally. Lieutenant Ngarimu’s award had caused great jubilation among Maoris throughout the country, stated Lieutenant W. P. Clarke, of the Native Department in Auckland. It will be hailed as a signal honour, not only by his family or his tribe, but by the whole Maori race,” he said. The award would probably be celebrated in the near future by a large hui in the east coast district.