Rainbow: A soldier, prisoner of war and road builder
Albert Rainbow’s grave at Piopio is one of the thousands restored by the Remembrance Army, a charity dedicated to cleaning the graves of returned service people in New Zealand cemeteries. Volunteers look after between 50-60,000 each year – cleaning, clearing away leaves and weeds. They have identified hundreds of unmarked graves of veterans. In the Waipā-king Country they have cleaned over 800 graves, and placed new headstones on the graves of seven soldiers.
In the case of Albert Rainbow, who was buried in the Piopio Cemetery, the Remembrance Army replaced the simple wooden cross with a stone one and cleaned the concrete grave surround.
The original cross was retained and laid down on the grave.
In a ceremony to mark the occasion, Rowan Miller, a member of the Remembrance Army, read out the eulogy she had researched and prepared. Rowan’s research forms a substantial part of this week’s Dead Tell Tales.
Rainbow was born in Tasmania, but when he was 18 he crossed the Tasman to Wellington and made his way north to the Aria-piopio area.
He undertook a medical examination for the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces (NZEF) in Te Kūiti in March 1915, but there is some discrepancy in the records, as although he was accepted then he enlisted again in July 1917, again attekūiti.
He listed his address as Piopio, and his employer as the Post & Telegraph Department.
He gave his next-of-kin variously as his mother Mrs D Rainbow, Winnaleah, Tasmania, and Mr Hattaway, Piopio − probably William Hattaway, boardinghouse keeper. Perhaps Rainbow lived in the boarding house.
He was posted to the 32nd Reinforcements with the Otago Infantry Regiment, D Company, in August 1917, and was in France in March 1918.
Only two months later, he was listed as missing, and in June it was confirmed he was a prisoner of war, one of the 500 or so New Zealand servicemen taken as prisoners of war.
The Wikipedia entry about the German camps makes gruesome reading:
“... the German authorities … did not hesitate to resort to denutrition, punishments and psychological mobbing; incarceration was also combined with methodical exploitation of the prisoners”.
Rainbow remained a POW until his release in November 1918.
He returned to Piopio, joining the Returned Serviceman’s Association and Football Club. He is identified as being 5ft 5in [165cm] with fair complexion, dark brown hair and blue eyes.
He competed in various sports, particularly woodchopping.
By 1922 he was employed by the Public Works Department for road making, and on a wet dark evening on 31 May he was returning to his camp at Te Mapara from Piopio, when his horse fell through an undermined track, throwing Rainbow into the Te Mapara River below.
He landed on his head on some rocks, and his horse landed on top of him.
His friend Campbell was with him and managed to pull Rainbow onto the shore, but Rainbow did not survive his injury; his neck was broken.
The returned soldiers of Piopio organised his funeral a few days later, which was reported in the King Country Chronicle:
“The funeral, which was probably the biggest ever recorded in the district, if not the biggest, was attended by fully 250 persons.
“The Piopio Returned Soldiers’ Club and the Piopio Football club were both well represented, and the schoolchildren and masters and teachers of the Piopio school were also present, in addition to numerous residents and settlers who had gathered to pay their respects to the memory of a popular young man.
“All the business places in Piopio were closed, and flags hung at half mast….the Union Jack was spread over the coffin, and a number of beautiful wreaths were also laid on top.
The proceedings all through were expressive of the heart-felt sorrow of the whole community, and were a silent but striking testimony to the esteem and respect with which the departed soldier boy was generally regarded.”
On September 29 1922 Major-general Sir A.H. Russell unveiled the Pio Pio First World War memorial.
The granite obelisk was inscribed with the names of 18 men from the district who had served.
It was mainly for those killed in action but there are a few who died once back in New Zealand; Rainbow’s name is not among them.