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Welcome to A Soldiers Thoughts from the Second World War Webpage.
This site has been created so we may never forget the absurdity and waste of war. It is the story of one Kiwi soldier - one Ian McNeur - my father.
Ian McNeur served in the Second World War as a member (Service No. 235352) of 2NZEF (Expeditionary Force) - 2 NZ Division, 5 NZ Infantry Brigade, 23 Battalian Signals Platoon, attached to D Company. He saw active duty in the Italian Campaign, prior to being wounded at Cassino on 4 April 1944.
As a boy I knew my father had played some role in the Second World War, but I never really heard any details. While we attended ANZAC Day parades, Dad stayed home. Afterwards we would look at Dads medals and ask him questions and he might tell us one wee snippet - being caught with his pants down on the toilet during a stonk, only ever seeing 3 or 4 of the enemy (the Polish prisoners) and the fighting in Cassino consisting of calling up the tanks to put a shell through a window to silence the snipers. This formed the sum knowledge of his involvement and my curiosity was well wetted.
A few years ago, my sister Erica obtained Dads poems from our Aunt Luenda (Dads sister), and subsequently typed and distributed them to family members. I felt they deserved a bit more attention, and developed a draft "book" where I tried to return the poems to their correct chronological order and developed a chronology of events as I thought from the official War History book "ITALY, Vol 1, The Sangro to Cassino" by NC Phillips. I was then able to discuss my work with my father (50+ years after the events detailed) and fine tuned things a bit. This was the first time Dad opened up and talked about things, which was great, but also unfortunate because a lot of the details were muddled by time.
Following the “first edition” of my “book”, I acquired more information regarding Ians war in the form of copies of the 23rd Battalion History Chapters 12 &13 relating to the action in Italy up to and including Cassino. It nicely fills in some gaps and confirms some of my presumptions made in the first edition chronology. I am indebted to Mr Windsor Jones, Curator of QEII Army Museum, Waiouru for this information. A copy of the poems was forwarded to the Museum and Mr Jones indicated that they were keen to use some of them for their school children tours.
Since then, Dad has written an “auto-biography” as part of his work on our Family tree which included some additional snippets. Additionally I was able to contact the organiser of a 23rd Battalion reunion and from this contact and the reunion, gain some contacts - Cam Wilson, Graham French, Ian Muldrew and Ron Kennedy. From all these sources I want to present an accurate picture of Dad and his friends war, as experienced by the soldier on the ground who didn't know the bigger picture
I recommend you start with the poems first then proceed to the story, but of course, you can navigate it any way you like! I hope you take the time to read and ponder the material here.
AWARDED FOLLOWING MEDALS:
1939-45 Star, Africa Star, Italy Star, Defence Medal, War Medal 1939-45, NZ War Service Medal.
These medals are campaign medals awarded to all personnel from Commonwealth countries who served in that campaign. To see these medals, look here at "Sids War" Website. Dad's medals where the same (with the addition of the NZ War Medal), and arrived the same way as Sid's did - in the mail. The NZ War Service Medal has a black ribbon with white edges, and the round, silver, medal features the Silver Fern on it.
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© January 2001, George McNeur, Christchurch N.Z..
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