Arthur Edward Dendy - War memoir, 1898 - 1918

1898-1918

Parent

Cenotaph database records for 22628 Arthur Edward Dendy, 5/764 Richard George Dendy, 19213 William Henry Jones, 7/332 Cuthbert William Free, 22438 Henry Ashton Highet, 30114 Clarence Eli Lee, 15/5 Walter William Alderman and 22695 Frederick James Beechey.

Provenance: Arthur Dendy's original memoirs were left to the donor's father. It appears that Dendy had become a family friend through a shared association with the local tennis club in Santa Monica sometime toward the end or just after the Second World War. [Ref. Letter from Bill Thayer, San Diego, California, USA, to Auckland War Memorial Museum, dated 21 April 2009. Filed under 'Thayer' in library correspondence folder 3844-06, January - December 2010]

Location of original: Original five-volume memoir is in the possession of the donor.

Arthur Edward Dendy was born on 23 October 1883, at Bishop Sutton, Somerset, England. Upon leaving school in 1898, he entered the engineering trade at the Union Foundry of "T.W. Wedlake, W. Dendy & Co." at Hornchurch, Essex, and remained there until emigrating to New Zealand in July, 1910, joining his brother, Richard ('Dick') George Dendy, who had gone there in November, 1908. On the outbreak of the First World War, Dendy was working in Timaru, representing a firm of importers of motor-vehicle and motor-bike parts. He enlisted in November, 1915, and was called up several months later in March, 1916. He began his military training at Trentham Camp and gained his commission as 2nd Lieutenant on 7 January 1917, attached to 2nd (South Canterbury) Infantry Regiment. Official records state that Dendy left New Zealand with the 21st Reinforcements, attached to C Company, Canterbury Infantry Regiment, on 19 January 1917, aboard the 'Ulimaroa' [Dendy, however, has a different recollection of this]. He took part in the Messines Offensive in 1917 and served with the Canterbury Regiment until the end of the war, when ill health saw him being withdrawn from active service. Dendy returned to New Zealand after the war but did not remain there long. He immigrated to the United States in 1920 and settled in California, where he took up various engineering-related positions until finding employment as an engineer and draughtsman for an aeroplane parts manufacturer. Arthur Dendy died in Los Angeles on 1 October 1961.

Donated by William ('Bill') Allen Thayer on 26 April 2009.

28 Mar 2024