With ANZAC Day upon us and the time for remembering, honouring and reflecting I thought I should bring to life my Grandfather’s Story, the subject of one of my earliest blogs.
The Story may be found here.
This chronicles events the short life, 35 years, of Sgt Sydney John Vine MM, Regimental Number 15/92. Whilst he amazingly survived service on all Fronts on which the New Zealand Division was engaged through the Great War, he died soon after its conclusion. He was taken on 12 July 1922 at Wellington Hospital, at the tail-end of the Influenza Epidemic as a result of weakened lungs sustained on the Front in France, “Death due to War Service”.
The story raises the possibility that Sydney Vine enlisted as an ANZAC with the objective of reuniting with, and marrying the mother of his first born back in England, departing significantly from the quest for adventure that motivated many other of his colleagues to join the campaign.
His death shortly after repatriation to New Zealand, and unique burial in the Church of England section at Karori, with a Serviceman’s headstone, bears the possible conclusion that his wife of 7 short years commendably wished to acknowledge both his English heritage and his military service as an ANZAC.
