A father's farewell for his son, Eruera Dennis Hamon - C Company 1939

Glen L. Rudd – an American LDS missionary in Gisborne NZ compiled excerpts of his diary for the Hamon family, which included these quoted below - circa late 1939 to early 1940. Unfortunately he did not always label the excerpts clearly with the dates. During this time Elder Rudd was living in the home of Henare Hamon, the father of Eruera Dennis Hamon. Henare's wife, Lydia had died just 4 years before when Dennis was 14. Elder Rudd calls Henare ‘Pop’. These are the excerpts: Elder Rudd explains...Pop Hamon had a young son, who was about 20 years old. He was a very good artist. He didn’t live with Pop all the time but came home occasionally.He was with us at Pop’s house during most of the week. I sat on the porch and talked with him. He was a fine young man.”“As I was working alone, Pop’s son Dennis came in and we had a nice visit. He showed me a few Maori games.” “The next day we cleaned, wrote letters, and read. Dennis was there with us. He broke his banjo while we were fooling around. “ 12 December 1939 “Dennis, Pop’s son was at home. He was quite argumentative about the United States and England. He didn’t like them very much and wanted us to know it. He was a good young fellow just kind of lost.” Elder Rudd then goes on to talk about Dennis being very sick for several days which was a huge concern to his father and required him being given several 'blessings' and rushed to the hosptal during the night.  From Glen L Rudd's diary excerpts in the possession of senior Hamon family members.________________________________ Note:  I wanted to put this in because it shows lttle aspects of Uncle Dennis' character and we are seeing a fine young man emerge.  He was artistic. He was musical. He played a banjo, and in the picture above he is playing a guitar with his father at his farewell. He entertained his  foreign missionary guests with Maori games, conversation and a little fooling around. He came from a family with strong spiritual beliefs and practices. He was a young man with an opinion of the Americans and English and was quite happy to express this to an American living in his home.  New Zealand had already declared war on September 4, 1939 and on October 4 the NZ Government announced it would form an infantry battalion of Maori recruits.  By the time Dennis expressed his concerns to Elder Rudd, the East Coast was seeing many of its sons make their way to the recruitment office.   It sounds like only days later Dennis became quite unwell and was hospitalised, causing his father great concern - and yet, on December 30 of 1939 he enlisted, ensuring entry by stating that he was born in 1918 instead of 1920. He marched into Camp at Palmerston North on the 26th of January 1940.  Four days later he was evacuated to a hospital in Trentham.  On March 13, 1940, the Second Echelon, which included the Maori Battalion, was given 14 days leave to say their farewells. Dennis returned home for the last time.

I'm anxious to contact descendants of servicemen who spent the Battle of Britain period in the south of England. My primary interest is their reception by local people, few of whom would have had dealings with non-white soldiers prior to 1940. My focus will be on Farnham, Ewshott and Aldershot. There is alot of information in the UK about civilian reaction to Afro-American personnel, the Imperial War Museum has run an exhibition on Carribean personnel, but there seems little info about the Brits' feelings about the Maori Battalion, particularly why they were welcomed and treated well. I picked the Manahi name because I recognised it-----hope you don't mind.