Wairarapa hero's war medal heads home

FOUND: Ngaire Gainey with the recovered Gallipoli medallion. PHOTO/FILE

Tracing the history of a precious World War I medallion just reunited with its rightful owners, after a 25-year search for them, leads directly back to Wairarapa.

The medallion, commemorating the heroism of the Anzacs at Gallipoli in 1915 and featuring the stretcher bearer John Simpson and his donkey, was found buried in the mud around the shores of Lake Wakatipu in the South Island in 1989.

It was discovered by Craig Brown who was using a metal detector and, from there, his friend, Kevin Heath, launched a nation-wide hunt for the recipient of the long lost medallion.

It was not known how long it had languished lakeside but, this month, Mr Heath, and other members of White Crosses of St Andrews Group, traced a descendant of J.E.Dales who had been awarded the medallion all those years ago.

His great niece, Ngaire Gainey, of Napier, now has the medallion and is seeking to find the grandchildren of Mr Dales who live in Australia so it can be returned to them.

John Edwin Dales was born in Masterton in either 1889 or 1890 depending on which record of his birth is the most reliable.

Wairarapa archivist Gareth Winter has determined he was the son of an Irish-born Presbyterian minister Robert Jackson Dales who came to New Zealand via Melbourne in 1879.

The old soldier's mother was Charlotte Gooding, daughter of Jacob Gooding and Sarah Burling - both families historically linked to South Wairarapa - and as a youngster he lived in the Mauriceville area until about 1897 when the family moved to Dannevirke.

John Dales enlisted very early after the outbreak of World War I, doing so in Masterton just days after war broke out. He served at Gallipoli and survived the conflict, despite periods of illness and a gunshot wound to the wrist, rising to the rank of quarter master sergeant, and remained in the army until 1919.

Mr Dales married in 1921 and continued living in Dannevirke where he worked as a linesman but later shifted to Christchurch.

When World War II started, he enlisted and served at home.

Mr Dales died in Christchurch in 1979 at 90 and his wife died in 1992, at 96.