OBITUARY: Bernard Walter Newport (Wallie) (Reg. No 8095) November 7, 1922 – March 22, 2018 Fitting sendoff for old soldier and sailor
There are different accounts as to who fired the last shot at sea in the European theatre of WWII.
Most official histories credit HMS Dido which, while en route to Copenhagen to accept the surrender of the German fleet on VE Day, May 8, 1945, fired a single round at an approaching German plane.
But an alternate version comes from Hamilton man Wallie Newport, whose fast motor torpedo boat (MTB) following a failure in communications, had a go at a German minesweeper after ceasefire.
From Wallie’s memoirs, the 35-metre, four-engine MTB 5005 had put into the harbour in the Scheldt River on the approaches to Antwerp to effect repairs to an Oerlikon 20mm cannon damaged in a scrap. For whatever reason, while in harbour the crew missed the signal on the ceasefire that called to an end the war in Europe. Unaware they were no longer on active service, MTB 5005 put out to sea and, one hour after the ceasefire came into effect, attacked a, no doubt, startled enemy boat at 1am on VE Day.
The result was a severe dressing down from British Naval Command and, according to Wallie’s memoirs, they were reported for ‘‘gross failure to obey orders that could result in an international incident’’.
The matter did not end there and, wrote Wallie, perhaps a little tongue-incheek: ‘‘When we returned to Ostend we found out what deep disgrace we had inflicted, not only on ourselves, but also on the flotilla, coastal forces in general, CCF [Captain Coastal Forces] Dover, the Dover Command, The Royal Navy, the King, the British Empire.’’
The boat was ordered to deammunition, leave the flotilla, and return to England asap. However, the officers had one last card to play. As the now disgraced 5005 left harbour, they let loose a few rounds ‘‘inadvertently’’ left on board, prompting an immediate flurry of signal lamp and short-range radio communication from shore, all of which they ignored.
Whatever the official histories may say, Wallie was convinced their ship-toship naval action in the wee hours on VE Day was the last of the war in the Atlantic theatre.
Born in Nelson, Wallie was part of the 26th New Zealand generation of the Newport family, which had arrived in the area on the first immigrant boat in 1842. In the Great Depression, however, such whakapapa counted for little, and Wallie remembered his father, Ralph, digging ditches.
Growing up, Wallie had clear recollections of both the 1929 Murchison and 1931 Napier earthquakes, and of family friend Ernest Rutherford, sitting on the kitchen table talking to his mother, Edith.
Wallie grew up a hunter and fisherman – mostly to put food on the family table. This was necessary for an unusual reason – Edith ran a Nelson dairy and was in the habit during the Depression of allowing families to purchase food on account, knowing the debt was unlikely to be paid.
Wallie was a latecomer to the navy – at war’s outbreak he was in the Forest Service, which he joined aged 16, straight out of Nelson College. He developed a large knowledge of the country’s fauna and flora and, throughout his life, he kept a herbarium. People would regularly ring and send him samples for identification.
At 18, he signed on to the NZ Army, and made sergeant, on detail in Northland. A capable fighting man, he was passed over for a commission by the army on a number of occasions because of his stature – ‘‘he was 5’3 on a good day’’, son Barrie said.
Advised his height would not be an issue in the navy, Wallie applied for a transfer. As he was under 21, he needed his father’s permission, which he got in part exchange for allowing family members the use of his double-barrelled shotgun for hunting trips.
Wallie celebrated his 21st birthday in the UK and remembered watching the German V1 ‘‘doodle bug’’ rockets over London. He was separated from his New Zealand section following health problems, and finally made it as a sublieutenant navigator on to an MTB. Memorably, he spent his first trip at sea lashed to a torpedo tube, hopelessly seasick, the only time he was incapacitated during his war at sea.
Back in New Zealand in 1946, he was offered a promotion in the Forest Service and a sole charge post. However, he decided to go teaching, and trained in Christchurch, before accepting a post at Auckland Point School in Nelson.
He moved north in the mid-1950s and joined the payroll section at Masterton Hospital where he met his wife, Betty. Around this time, he purchased a poultry farm running about 1000 hens.
The Wairarapa years were busy ones: Wallie was a four-term councillor on the Carterton Borough Council; was active in the Poultry Association; the Deerstalkers; the hospital office staff association; and the Druids Lodge. Whilst in Carterton, Wallie also gained his private pilot’s licence after he got hooked flying with a friend to Nelson and the West Coast for hunting trips.
The family moved to Hamilton in 1977 where Wallie was executive staff officer at the DHB. They settled in Glenview, but Wallie was at first unimpressed with the Waikato, as it offered limited hunting. He did, however, regularly try his hand at duck shooting on Lake Karapiro and on the waters south of Taupiri. He was a life member of the Waikato Gun Dog Club.
The couple started breeding gun dogs – springer spaniels, sussex spaniels, and large mu¨ nsterla¨ nders. Wallie introduced the sussex spaniel to New Zealand and was one of the first to bring in the large mu¨ nsterla¨ nder, which he imported from Germany.
They showed for some years in the gun dog sections of national kennel competitions and had several show champions in large mu¨ nsterla¨ nders and sussex spaniels, regionally and nationally. This interest necessitated a move to a rural property so, with Wallie retired after 40 years of public service, they left Glenview for Cox’s Bay in Raglan.
However, when Betty had a car accident caused by sunstrike on SH23, they rethought things, and moved to Taupiri, where Wallie, for about five years, added pigeon racing to his list of interests. He won a few races competing with the Hamilton Racing Pigeon Club.
By the late 1990s Wallie was struggling with his health, so the couple shifted once more, this time to Rototuna. Told by a surgeon, in the early 1980s, that operating on troublesome leg arteries was a waste of time if he did not give up his 40-year smoking habit, Wallie did so. His pipe, a tin of tobacco, and a box of matches, sat untouched on his mantelpiece for three years, testimony to his willpower.
Wallie joined Hamilton’s SeniorNet at the Celebrating Age Centre, where his lifelong interest in education had him as an active computer skills teacher, and committee member, gaining life membership of the organisation.
As befits an old soldier and sailor, Wallie was farewelled with the Last Post and Ode of Remembrance at the Seddon Park Funeral Home chapel.
Wallie was husband and best friend of Betty; loved father of Diana and the late Leonard (Melbourne); Jilliene and Phil Beale (Hamilton); and Barrie and Sharon (Gore); and the much-loved grandfather of 12 and great-grandfather of two.
●➤ A Life Story tells of a New Zealander who helped to shape the Waikato community. If you know of someone whose life story should be told, email Charles.riddle@wintec.ac.nz