JAMES WILLIAM DUNLOP enlisted as JAMES ROBERT DUNLOP No 27001 Canterbury Infantry Battalion, C Company in 1916 stating he was born in 1896 when he was actually born in 1901.
This meant he turned 16 when in the trenches in France in 1917.
James went with the 17th reinforcement to England in the ‘Pakeha’ then to France where he joined the 2nd South Canterbury regiment of the 2nd Canterbury Battalion.
James had been apprenticed as an electrician at the Christchurch Tramways Board but he was released for the duration of the war and upon his return in 1919 continued to work for the Board till he retired.
Some years after he returned from war he married Olga Hope Hassall and had a daughter Patricia and a son Barrie. It seems, like many others he never spoke of his war experiences.
If you can’t make it to a service for all those young men who went off to war, some of whom never came home, take a few minutes to remember them and the sacrifices they made for us, so that we may live in freedom and peace.