Photos of mystery World War II prisoner identified by Kiwi family

It was this image, of a forlorn and - at that stage - unidentified Kiwi soldier taken prisoner during WWII that captured the attention of amateur historian Jeff Plowman last month. Photo / Supplied

The mystery Kiwi prisoner of war pictured in a poignant image taken on a World War II battleground 80 years ago, and featured in a Herald on Sunday story last month, has been identified.

And, his granddaughter says, it's not the first time the sight of Raymond Allan Irwin's photo in the New Zealand Herald has cheered those who loved the late veteran.

Paula Goodburn said her grandmother was the first, after the photo was published in the Herald on May 1, 1941, above the caption: "Somebody's son".

"My grandmother had been told he was missing in action and presumed dead, and then that photo came out in the Herald and a relative of hers saw it and recognised him from his hands and the profile - his nose - so she contacted my nana.

"My nana realised it was him, and cut it out."

Raymond Irwin, who was born in 1904, was a married father of two young daughters when he volunteered to serve New Zealand on the battlefields of WWII. Photo / Supplied

Goodburn doesn't know how her grandmother, who died when she was 11, reacted - the war years were seldom discussed - but has little doubt there was immense relief her husband of 10 years and the father of their two young daughters was alive.

He would eventually return to his family in Auckland after four years in Austrian prisoner-of-war camp Stalag XVIII-A, six months recovering in Britain and the weeks-long journey home by ship.

Eighty years later it was Goodburn's turn to smile when the Herald on Sunday published the same photo after being contacted by Christchurch biochemist and amateur historian Jeff Plowman.

Plowman found photos online of the Kiwi soldier's capture while researching the Battle of Greece, in which his father served and was also taken prisoner, and couldn't get the forlorn face of the captured mystery Kiwi soldier out of his mind.

"It's kind of like it's just happened and he's like, 'That's it. How long will I be a POW?'"

A Kiwi WWII soldier captured in Greece, and pictured at left on the tank of German commander Oberst (Colonel) Hermann Balck, has been identified by family as Raymond Irwin. Photo / Supplied

The photos, which showed a downcast Irwin sitting on the tank of Germany's Greek campaign commander Oberst (Colonel) Hermann Balck, were taken on April 16, 1941, at Platamon Castle near the village of Panteleimonas, 400km north of Athens.

The close-up image of Irwin was published in the Herald on May 1, 1941, below the caption, "Somebody's son: A weary New Zealand soldier captured in Greece. This German propaganda picture was radioed from Berlin to New York on April 22."

Eight decades on, Plowman's plea to identify the unknown soldier caught the attention of Goodburn's brother.

"My brother said, 'Is that grandpop?' As soon as I opened the article I knew straight away, that was my photo."

Her photo is a copy of the one featured in the Herald, passed down from her mother, and framed on the wall of her home.

A German guard later gave Kiwi prisoner of war Raymond Irwin a copy of the propaganda magazine whose cover showed the moment the soldier was captured in 1941. Photo / Supplied

The image also made the cover of a German propaganda magazine, Goodburn said.

"When he got back from the war he brought back with him the original cover from the German propaganda magazine - he was given that by a guard.

"My cousin, who's got the original cover, she's had it loosely translated and it means, 'look at us, the English are on the run and we're gonna win the war'."

She has fond childhood memories of her grandfather, most especially going eeling together, but the Waihi-born carpenter and later taxi driver didn't talk with her about the war before his death in 1976.

Auckland woman Paula Goodburn with the framed photo of her grandfather, Raymond Irwin, soon after the Kiwi soldier was captured by German forces in 1941. Photo / Supplied

He did tell her older cousins he was captured after being buried alive when a mortar attack nearby killed fellow soldiers in the 21st Battalion, whose members were volunteers from the top half of the North Island.

"He was obviously presumed dead and somebody buried him alive. He looked dead but he was actually alive and his hand was sticking out of the ground, and the Germans came along and uncovered him, and that's how he was captured.

"I can't verify that, that was just something my cousins said he'd told them. But he didn't talk much about it."

Raymond Allan Irwin (3rd from right in the 3rd row) pictured during the four years he spent in Stalag XVIII-A in Wolfsberg, Austria with other Allied prsioners. Photo / Supplied

Plowman was stunned his "shot in the dark" at finding the mystery POW had paid off.

Asked why it mattered who the soldier was, Plowman spoke about Eric Bogle's song No Man's Land, a lament over the death of a young WWI soldier.

"There's a verse where he talks about, 'did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?' and he says, 'or are you a stranger without even a name, forever enshrined behind some old glass pane, in an old photograph torn, tattered and stained, and faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?'

"How many photos do we have of people in wartime that are just that, you know? Some unknown person."