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Wartime work brought smiles to many

THE DEAD TELL TALES Lyn Williams

John Herbert Ledgerwood 1908-1959

When John Ledgerwood was transferred to Hamilton in 1938 as general secretary of the YMCA Hamilton branch, few would have suspected that this man would become a war hero. A soldier writing from the New Zealand forces in Egypt in October 1940 stated:

‘‘If he does not have a string of medals pinned on him he deserves them anyway.’’

So what did Ledgerwood do to deserve such an accolade?

In January 1940 Ledgerwood was sent overseas as a YMCA support person, one of three YMCA officers who accompanied the first echelon of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

His work began on board ship, organising a wide variety of social and recreational activities. Ledgerwood and the other officers organised physical training programmes, reading and writing facilities, card game evenings, a physical perfection parade (sounds like a Mr Shipboard contest) and other entertainments.

He put together a male voice choir, an orchestra and a mouth organ band; hymns for church services were not forgotten. He also produced a daily news sheet. As for the comforts he helped distribute, he said ‘‘2000 tins of cigarettes were worth more than any similar number of other articles’’.

In the Western Desert, attached to 19 Battalion, he set up mobile canteens − these went around the various units, supplying the men with writing materials, books, needles and thread, lemonade and cigarettes – he would return to Alexandria for supplies, pick up mail, buy presents on behalf of the men.

He carried a piano on his vehicle. The officer writing home said ‘‘Unquestionably he is the most popular man in the show . . . he knows everyone by his Christian name.’’ Another letter published by the Waikato Timesof his work: ‘‘Nothing is too much trouble for this bundle of energy, whose cheery face and spontaneous wit bring grins to the sunbaked faces of even the most dour. His is a 24-hour day’’.

Ledgerwood wrote reports on conditions.

One, in May 1940, was typed in a wooden YMCA hut while a sand storm raged around him, destroying tents and buildings. Another described how he was arrested under suspicion of being a Nazi fifth columnist − it took a visit from the British Consul to secure his release. He survived bombings, but then went to Greece with 4 NZ Infantry Brigade. A quick exit from there to Crete, still distributing canteen supplies.

During the evacuation from Crete, Ledgerwood was already on a rescue boat when it was announced they could not get all the men off – he jumped ashore, feeling he could do most good with the men as prisoners. And prisoners they soon were.

He ended up in Stalag 18A in Wolfsberg, Austria, a prisoner of war from December 1941 until liberated by the British Army in 1944.

In the camp he continued to organise activities, some of which he recorded with a camera smuggled in.

The Alexander Turnbull Library has a few of his photographs, including prisoners acting as bookies at a race meeting, and a pageant with the men dressed as Roman soldiers, and one of him dressed as Lord Mayor – his mayoral chain is a string of tin cans.

Ledgerwood was made padre in Stalag 18A, and this gave him freedom to move from place to place with work details.

He built up an escape organisation which engineered 1200 escapes from the various working camps.

After the liberation, Ledgerwood stayed on at the camp for two months as commandant and had the pleasure of showing two Gestapo agents the radio set the men had made and kept hidden for two years, plus jailing the agents and the German guards in the punishment cell and giving them the same daily ration of food as they had supplied to prisoners: ‘‘a cup of ersatz coffee, two slices of black bread and half a litre of turnip water swill.’’

Even when repatriated to Great Britain he carried out humanitarian work by visiting the relatives of about 100 men who had died in the camp.

Ledgerwood returned to Hamilton in September 1945.

It must have seemed a tame life after the previous eventful five years.

In 1946 Ledgerwood was awarded the MBE for his efforts for prisoners-of-war.

John Ledgerwood died in April 1959 aged 51 years and was buried in one of the Soldiers Memorial Lawns in Hamilton East Cemetery.

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2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

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