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Old 20-07-13, 01:53 AM
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atillathenunns atillathenunns is offline
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Location: Wellington, New Zealand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunbeam View Post
Hi there,

Alfred Kennedy Sloan was my grandfather - my mother died this week and we have his Lemon Squeezer hat at home with a South Canterbury Badge on it. I have his war record but never knew he had a collection of badges etc. He had a large brass shell casing at his home he used to keep his money in but he wouldn't ever really talk about WW1. He was in Gallipoli with his Uncle Sgt Major John Dunstan Lawley LEECH who was killed there on the 25th May 1915. JDL Leech was in the Auckland Regiment, I have all the medals for JDL Leech and his brother EDH Leech from the Boer War and WW1. Why would Alf have a South Canterbury Badge on his Lemon Squeezer?? He died in 1962 and Montague (Monty) Haydon Sloan was born on the 14th of January 1894 and died in Australia under the name Montague Arnold Spencer in 1980.
Greetings Sunbeam,
Sympathies for your recent loss.
I have not been able to locate your grandfather’s service records on archives, so cannot offer much on why his Lemon Squeezer hat sports a South Canterbury Badge. However if you send me a PM to organise a copy of his records, and pictures of the hat, I may be able to help.

In regards to the regimental badges that formed part of your grandfather’s collection, these would have been collected prior to his landing at Gallipoli, and are, (until an earlier collection can be found) the earliest collection of military badges, that were collected during the war, to be publicly displayed in New Zealand.

Now as for your grandfather’s brother, old Monty, he is certainly an enigma.
Interestingly, you mention he was born on the “14th of January 1894,” yet his attestation records, which Monty himself signed on the 26th of October 1914, give his date of birth as being the 15th of November 1894.

And then we have the following, which was published on page 4 of the Free Lance newspaper, and is dated the 5th October 1917.


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