Pakeha; served with British unit; son of Cornelius & Harriet Mahoney.

Ernest Mahoney survived the war, although he was shot, not once but several times, patched up twice, even though he was shot right through the abdomen the first time and was pockmarked with shrapnel down the side of his face and shoulder in the second incident. According to legend, on the third occasion he was shot in the chest, placed among the dead but stirred, rose up and asked a passing orderly if he could bring him a cup of tea. Apparently his face was a dark blue colour, which is why he'd been put among the dead. The bullet had passed through his pericardium, just missing his heart, and lodged near his spine. He was sent back to England, where his nurse, my grandmother Kathleen, met, fell in love with, and married him. They returned to New Zealand and he came back to Ruatoki to convalesce, where my father was born. Grandfather Ernest grew up in the South Island, was a boxer, league (Wakefield Trinity) and rugby player (West Coast, All Blacks trials, British Army), professional 400m runner, single-figure golfer and useful cricketer. He was always known as "Mick" for some reason. He studied accountancy at night school and eventually became country clerk of the Hauraki Plains, living in Ngatea and Paeroa. In his retirement he moved to Cambridge. He had been playing league and working in a Grimthorpe, England, as a coal miner before the war, which is why he enlisted in a British regiment (Information provided by Mahoney family - July 2013). AWMM