Private Clifford Monteith Nightingale of Whangarei was killed in action in Belgium.
Rifelman was a Herald reporter when he enlisted.
86
Rifleman Clifford Nightingale was more familiar with the pen than the sword.
Twenty when he sailed with hundreds of reinforcements to join troops on the Western Front, Nightingale was a journalist with the Herald when he enlisted.
His writing talent was clear as a lad - the youngster won a watch as a prize for an original story published in the Northern Advocate when he was in standard six at Whangarei High School.
The newspaper employed Nightingale for two years, before the young reporter got a job with the Dargaville-based North Auckland Times. He then shifted down to the big smoke and the Herald job, before joining the 22nd reinforcements and transferring to the Rifle Brigade in Trentham Camp.
The tender recruit sailed to war with "J" company from Wellington on February 16, 1917. On board the troopship Navua, Nightingale entered writing competitions at sea, and left a legacy with several poems printed in the Navuan Nautilus, a publication that recorded the 10-week voyage to Devon by three New Zealand ships.
The 3000-tonne Navua sailed with the Aparima - which was sunk in the English Channel by a German torpedo in November 1917 - and the Mokoia.
Nightingale wrote poems about the discomfort of vaccination, a grizzle about censorship and an incident at sea when a hose used to clean the decks was lost overboard. The newsman was mindful of their destination. In My Vaccinated Arm - subtitled A Sufferer's Lament - Nightingale wrote:
"Our thoughts, too, turn to the things we'll do,
When filling the gaps 'out there',
And in fancy we hear the shells whizz through,
As the 22nds do their share.
The guns peal forth their 'hymn of hate',
And from the trench men swarm;
They charge, and - 'For heaven's sake mate,
Keep off my bally arm!'"
The Navua docked in southwest England in April 1917. On October 12, at the 2nd Battle of Passchendaele, Nightingale was reported wounded. His body was never found but a court of inquiry a month later recorded that another soldier saw Nightingale limp into a trench after being hit on his leg by shrapnel. The inquiry found that Nightingale was "wounded and missing, believed killed".
The ridge where it appears Nightingale lost his life remains the site of the worst disaster in terms of lives lost, in New Zealand's military history.
Nightingale has a headstone at Tyne Cot Cemetery, which contains more New Zealand World War I graves than any other cemetery - 520.
BusinessDesk's Garth Bray talks business with 2degrees, virtual fencing firm Halter reaches billion-dollar status and how much would you pay for a single Kiwifruit?
