Death breaks link to Maori battalion

PROUD: Kingi Matthews, on an Anzac Day parade. He was Wairarapa's second-to-last surviving member of the 28th Maori Battalion.PHOTO/FILE

One of the the last links Wairarapa had to a famous fighting battalion of World War II has passed with the death on Sunday of Kingi Matthews, 88.

Mr Matthews was a veteran of the 28th Maori Battalion which he joined in 1944, being sent to Italy with the 12th reinforcements.

His death leaves one surviving member of the 28th Maori Battalion living in Wairarapa, Epineha Ratapu, 92.

Apart from his war service Mr Matthews is well remembered as being an outstanding rugby player and Greytown club stalwart.

He was the oldest surviving 1946 Maori All Black and in his long playing career with Wairarapa-Bush he helped the representative side to lift the Ranfurly Shield from Canterbury in 1950. Mr Matthews, of Ngati Kahungunu and Rangitane, had lived in Greytown almost continuously since 1932 when his father moved back from Masterton to be closer to the Papawai marae.

He was an old boy of Greytown School and Wairarapa College and after serving in the war came back home to train as a carpenter in a scheme for returned soldiers and worked for Trotman Bros for 22 years.

When his rugby playing days eventually finished, having notched up 109 first-class games, Mr Matthews coached the Greytown senior team and had also served on the committee and as club patron.

He was married to Petina (Polly), who survives him, for 66 years and the couple raised 10 children.

Mr Matthews is lying at Papawai marae until his burial at the Black Bridge urupa, near Greytown, tomorrow.