World War II veteran left his mark on Lyttelton port
Guided only by aerial photos of the Italian town in ruins, Jock McPhail and his tank crew navigated the streets of Cassino to find and destroy a German tank holed up in a building.
It was March 1944, and the young New Zealander had already had his fair share of close shaves, including more than three weeks stationed in a quarry outside the town under constant mortar fire.
The World War II veteran ranked his service in Egypt and Italy as one of the things he was intensely proud of, alongside his Scottish ancestry and work as general manager of the Lyttelton Harbour Board. He held the role from
1971 to 1983 and was instrumental in securing container facilities at the port, transforming it into the modern facility it is today through his lobbying of the New Zealand Ports Authority.
John Alexander McPhail, known as Jock, was born in Gisborne on May 9,
1918. The last surviving Canterbury member of the 19th Armoured Battalion died in Christchurch on February 23, aged 99.
Friends and family remember him as a gentleman, old-school and, in the words of one former employee, ruthlessly fair. A lover of sports, Jock played rugby, golf, tennis and was a life member of the Cashmere Bowls Club.
A key event in his early life was the death of his Scottish-born father, Archie, when Jock was just 7. Murray McPhail said his father, the only boy of five children, had to become the de-facto ‘‘man of the house’’.
Jock’s grandfather helped the family move from Gisborne to Dunedin, where Jock attended Otago Boys’ High School. He left after just three years to take a job with the Taieri and Peninsula Dairy Company to support his mother, Flora.
It was in Dunedin where he met his wife-to-be, Lesley Gunn. The couple were engaged but Jock delayed getting married because, in the event he was killed overseas, he wanted any benefit to go to his mother.
Aged 20, around the time he met Lesley, Jock got a job with the Customs Department. He signed up with the Dunedin Scottish Regiment, a territorial unit, in July of 1939, just months before war broke out in Europe.
In September 1941 he was posted to Waiouru, where he became an officer in the 3rd Tank Battalion, but when the opportunity arose to head overseas there was an excess of officers, so he resigned the commission. He finally got his wish and arrived in Egypt for training outside of Cairo in August 1943. He saw action just months later as a gunner in the first tank to enter Perano, in Italy.
It was in Italy, during the Italian campaign to free the peninsula from the Germans, that Jock took up a command position as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 19th Armoured Battalion.
His memories of the war were recorded and collected in a book by his son, Murray. The bound volume was presented to Jock on his 81st birthday. It was, Murray remembers, the first time he saw him shed a tear.
In the quarry outside Cassino, Jock recounted the constant mortar fire. One night he slept under some timber planks behind his tank, but shifted back the next night because it wasn’t comfortable.
‘‘Just as well because that night a mortar made a direct hit on the timber planks, shattering them,’’ he said. On another occasion, a British officer he was walking beside was shot dead by a sniper.
He was part of the offensive that took Cassino, and spent eight days in the strategically located town. The fighting then continued towards Rome and Jock received a minor leg wound – he was reportedly very pleased when he recovered enough to play rugby.
A longer lasting affliction was the tinnitus in his left air – a likely cause being the time spent inside enclosed tank turrets beside recoiling 75mm cannons.
A medical officer gave him the following advice: ‘‘Go the drink, go the woman or go mad.’’ A virtuous man, Jock took the first option (in moderation). A teetotaller until then, his family attribute the moment to his lifelong taste for a dram of single malt whiskey.
By the time the war had wound down, Jock, by then a captain, was offered the position of major if he went to Japan. He turned down the offer, by that point desirous of home, and returned to Dunedin in early 1946.
A few months later he married Lesley, with whom he had four children, and took a job with the Port Employers Association. He also studied accounting, becoming a chartered accountant, and did the books for a number of organisations on the side.
In 1962 the young family moved to Christchurch where Jock took an administration position with the Lyttelton Harbour Board before being appointed general manager in 1972, responsible for running the port.
Jock was instrumental in getting Lyttelton declared a container port. He requested permission from the Ports Authority for a crane, and the container terminal officially opened in 1977.
He retired in 1983 after 12 years in the role. In later years he enjoyed the company of visitors, stayed active with bowls, golf and other sports and maintained an impressive vegetable garden.
Anzac Day was always a special occasion, and at other functions his family remember him cutting a dashing figure dressed in a kilt. Sometimes a sword, inherited from his grandfather, would also be brandished around.
‘‘He left his mark and will be missed by many,’’ his family said.
Jock McPhail is survived by his four children, Janet Ballin, Catherine Henshaw, Murray McPhail and Neil McPhail; 10 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.