During the Battle of MESSINES (7 June 1917) the whole German staff (commanded by Captain Thomas) was captured in the Institution Royale dugout (by the 4th Battalion NZRB) one officer, Lieutenant Albert Francis Lewer (originally in the Canterbury Regiment but an officer in the NZRB), wrote home to his father in Karori, Wellington that ‘I personally, captured the defender of Messines, a Hun by the name of Captain Thomas.’ (source - Marlborough Express, 6 September 1917).

Before the war Lewer had been a milkman, had only joined the New Zealand forces at Messines just over a fortnight earlier, and was wounded in early October 1917 and again in April 1918. The garrison of the Institution Royale was annihilated in fierce hand to hand fighting by a platoon of the NZRB led by Sergeant J. W. Penrose. Penrose and all but two of his men were killed.