100 Kiwi Stories: NZ-born trooper died before learning of VC

Lawrence Carthage Weathers was awarded the Victoria Cross "for most conspicuous bravery".

Northlander served with Australian Imperial Force.

96 Lawrence Weathers was an undertaker by trade and a soldier by choice. He was also one of four New Zealanders awarded the Victoria Cross while serving in the Imperial Australian Army.

Weathers was born at Te Kopuru near Dargaville. His father John packed the family up when Lawrence was seven and returned to Australia.

In his early 20s, Lawrence, by then an Adelaide undertaker, married Annie Watson and raised two small children.

On February 3, 1916, six months after his brother Thomas died at Gallipoli serving with the 9th Australian Light Horse Regiment, Weathers enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force.

Five months later, he embarked for Britain with the 43rd AIF Battalion.

On the night of June 10, 1917, during an operation at Messines, he suffered a severe gunshot wound in his leg. He spent some months recovering, before rejoining his battalion in December.

Promoted to lance corporal on March 21, 1918, he suffered the effects of gas on May 26 at Bois L'Abbe in France.

The tough trooper rejoined his unit in June, prior to a major Australian assault on a strategic hill beside the River Somme called Mont St Quentin, a target the British military leadership considered "impregnable".

The German stronghold and the nearby village of Peronne on the other bank fell to the inspired Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash's depleted forces. On September 2, the 43rd was ordered to clear an area covered with barbed wire which protected a network of enemy trenches.

The unit advanced at dawn, Weathers in the front. He attacked the enemy position and killed the German commander before returning to collect more grenades.

Given covering fire by a mate with a Lewis machinegun, Weathers scrambled back to the trench, hurling his bombs towards the men below. Reports of the action say resistance stopped by 7am. The Kiwi-born infantryman and his three comrades took three captured machineguns and 180 enemy prisoners.

For his actions, Weathers was recommended for the Victoria Cross.

There was little relief for the 43rd as Allied forces and pushed north towards the Hindenburg Line, the last and strongest of the Germany Army's defences. Early on September 29, Weathers was hit by shellfire. He was dead by dusk and never learned of his VC, which was gazetted on Christmas Eve.

He was buried in Unicorn cemetery, about 20km from the trench where he earned his honour.

His name is on the Roll of Honour outside the northern Wairoa RSA in Dargaville.

The other Kiwis awarded a VC with the AIF were Napier-born Percy Storkey, Thomas Cook of Kaikoura, and Wellington's Alfred Shout.

100 Kiwi Stories runs Monday and Thursday.