New Zealand’s oldest person dies, aged 109
New Zealand’s oldest person, World
War II veteran Ron Hermanns, has died at the age of 109.
Hermanns passed away peacefully on Monday at his home in Christchurch, his neighbour and friend Mike Beard said.
He was 26 days short of his 110th birthday.
Despite his age, he remained active and sprightly, and even in recent years he tinkered around in his shed, built fences in his backyard, and enjoyed the odd bit of DIY and gardening.
On Anzac Day last year, Hermanns braved the pre-dawn cold to sit at the end of his driveway and listen as bugles echoed across his neighbourhood, with formal traditional parades and services cancelled for the first time since 1916 because of the Covid-19 pandemic. A photo of him as he stood quietly to attention went viral around the world.
‘‘Longevity is one of those things that just happens, but he was more than that – he was an outstanding person,’’ Beard told The Press.
‘‘He was a gifted man. He had the rare combination of high intelligence and manual dexterity. He spent his life problem-solving, thinking of new ways of doing things, and continued to do this until the last few days of his life.’’
Beard said neighbours and local shop workers regarded Hermanns ‘‘as an institution, almost’’.
Hermanns became unwell after a fall three months ago and, despite rallying, went downhill in recent weeks.
‘‘He stayed at home because many people who were his friends enabled him to do so because they acted as his carers,’’ Beard said.
Asked the secret of his long life back in 2019, Hermanns said he had never had any interest in sport or exercise, and neighbour Katherine Ryan said he turned his nose up at vegetables.
‘‘My doctor said to me, ‘Is there anything unusual about your
lifestyle?’. I said, ‘Well, I never married’.’’
Hermanns’ death means Auckland’s Joan Brennan, a few months younger at 109, and fellow World War II veteran Bill Mitchell, 108, are now thought to be the oldest living New Zealanders.
Born in Canada on September
25, 1911 – before World War I, before the Titanic sank, and quite possibly when some of Canterbury’s first settlers were still alive – Hermanns and his family moved to Wellington in
1914.
After school, he became an engineering apprentice, working on the assembly line at the General Motors plant in Petone, and later as a turner and fitter on the railways. But the looming war inspired him to turn to his first love – flying.
Joining the Royal New Zealand Air Force at the outbreak of war in 1939, after two years in the Territorial Air Force, Hermanns served as an aircraft engineer in the Pacific during World War II, building and maintaining aircraft.
He created art in his downtime – intricate jewellery and souvenirs from shells, bamboo and items he had scavenged, to sell to American troops. Many of those artworks are now at the Air Force Museum in Wigram, with his letters – later turned into a diary – held by the Alexander Turnbull Library.
After the war and leaving the air force in 1947, Hermanns became an aircraft engineer and then senior instructor at the aircraft engineering workshops at Christchurch Airport, initially for the National Airways Corporation and then Air New Zealand, before retiring in 1976.