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Auction: 18003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 322

(x) Three: Private J. Platz, Wellington Regiment, N.Z.E.F., a Boer War veteran who was wounded by a gunshot to the head in the Great War

Queen's South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, South Africa 1902 (9005 Pte. J. Platz, 1st. Regt. 10th. N.Z. Cont:); British War and Victory Medals (11933 Pte. J. Platz, N.Z.E.F.), mounted as worn, edge bruise to second, very fine (3)


Joseph Platz was born in Auckland, New Zealand on 31 December 1872 and worked as a bushman by trade, near his home at Wanganui. Towards the end of the Boer War he enlisted in the Tenth Contingent which was raised by the New Zealand Cabinet as a response to the defeat suffered by British Forces at Tweebosch on 7 March 1902. It was divided into two regiments: The North Island Regiment which departed from Wellington aboard the S.S. Drayton Grange and the South Island Regiment that left Lyttleton on the S.S. Norfolk. Joseph arrived in South Africa on 27 May 1902, just four days before the war ended on 31 May; the men briefly assisted with peacekeeping duties but departed for home in July.

Joseph once again enlisted on 11 January 1916, this time in the 2nd Battalion of the Wellington Regiment. Joining his battalion in France on 12 October 1916, he was wounded in action a little over a month later - on 16 November - with a severe gunshot wound to the jaw and face, resulting in a fractured skull; he was admitted to the 13th Stationary Hospital, Boulogne, and was subsequently transferred - via H.M.H.S. St Andrew - to England and admitted to the No. 1 N.Z. General Hospital at Brockenhurst, Hampshire. Such was the serious nature of his wounds that he was embarked for New Zealand in January 1917 and was struck off strength in August, no longer fit for war service. He died at Wanganui in October 1938; sold with copied service papers.


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Sold for
£270