George Bernard Knight
Born 7 Nov 1893 - Died 12 Oct 1917
- Service number
- WWI 8/1532 AWMM
- Also known as
- —
- Armed force / branch
- Army AWMM
- Last rank
- WW1 Second Lieutenant AWMM Otago Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion AWMM
- War
- World War I, 1914-1918 AWMM
About
- Title
- —
- Forenames
- George Bernard AWMM
- Surname
- Knight AWMM
- Ingoa
- —
- Also known as
- —
- Service number
- WWI 8/1532 AWMM
- Gender
- Male AWMM
- Iwi / Hapū / Waka / Rohe
- —
- Religion
- —
Images
Documents
About birth
- Birth
- 7 Nov 1893 AWMM
- Date of birth
- —
- Place of birth
- —
- Birth notes
- —
- Address before enlistment
- WW1 Pre 15 Dec 1914 AWMM The Point, Dannevirke, New Zealand AWMM
- Post war occupation
- —
- Next of kin
- WW1 H.D. Knight (father), The Point, Dannevirke, New Zealand AWMM
- Relationship status
- Pre 14 Feb 1915 AWMM Single/WWI AWMM
Wars and conflicts
- War
- World War I, 1914-1918 AWMM
- Campaign
- 1915-1916 AWMM Gallipoli AWMM
- 1914-1919 AWMM Western Front AWMM
- 1917 AWMM Passchendaele AWMM
- 1917 AWMM Passchendaele AWMM
- Armed force / branch
- Army AWMM
- Service number
- WWI 8/1532 AWMM
- Military service
- —
- Promotions/ Postings/ Transfers
- —
Military decorations
- Medals and Awards
- —
Training and Enlistment
- Military training
- —
- Branch Trade Proficiency
- —
- Enlistment
- WW1 15 Dec 1914 AWMM Farm hand/Civilian AWMM
- Age on enlistment
- —
- Occupation before enlistment
- —
Embarkations
- Embarkation details
- WW1 Vessel was Aparima AWMM Private AWMM Otago Infantry Battalion AWMM 3rd Reinforcements AWMM
Prisoner of war
- Capture details
- —
- Days interned
- —
- Liberation date
- —
- POW liberation details
- —
- Liberation Repatriation
- —
- POW serial number
- —
Medical history
- Medical notes
- Hospital Diseases , Wounds, WWI AWMM
Illness: Hospitalised in August 1915, Cairo. AWMM - Hospital Diseases , Wounds, WWI AWMM
Illness (septic finger): Date and place unknown. AWMM - Hospital Diseases , Wounds, WWI AWMM
Wounded (gunshot wound to chest) at Armentieres on 29 June 1917. Treated at No. 13 Stationary Hospital at Boulogne on 17 July 1916 and invalided back to England aboard St. Denis Dover and placed on the dangerously ill list. Convalesced at several hospitals. AWMM - Killed in Action, Cause of Death AWMM
- Hospital Diseases , Wounds, WWI AWMM
Last known rank
- Last rank
- WW1 Second Lieutenant AWMM
Otago Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion AWMM - Last rank
- —
Biographical information
- Son of Herbert Douglas and Ellen Knight, of Mokorua.
George Knight was one of ten children (three girls and seven boys). All three Knight boys who were old enough went to war and never returned. The youngest, Herbert, was killed at Cape Helles at Gallipoli on 8 May 1915. George was killed at Passchendaele on 12 October 1917, and Douglas (William Douglas) on 1 September 1918, near Bancourt, France.
He entered Trentham Camp on 20 December 1914 with rank of Private.
After a brief period of hospitalisation in Cairo during August 1915, he was employed at the School of Instruction at Zeitoun Camp.
Promoted to Lance Corporal in February 1916.
Embarked for France in April 1916 and was made Temporary Corporal.
Was wounded and after convalescence was sent to Sling Camp to resume training. In March 1917 he was appointed Temporary Sergeant. Two months later he was nominated for officer training and was commissioned Second Lieutenant on 15 June 1917. [Studholme records commission date as 2 June 1917]
Left for Etaples, France, on 20 June 1917, and joined the 2nd Battalion, Otago Infantry Regiment. From this point on he was involved in much of the heavy fighting, and on 12 October 1917 it was his turn to go "over the top", up Bellevue Spur, towards the tiny village of Passchendaele. Leading his men, he encountered the impenetrable wire and was cut down by a burst of machine gun fire only feet from the enemy positions.
His body was never recovered and his service record states: " Many of these men were buried by stretcher bearers where they fell, to right and left of road beyond Waterloo Farm across Ravebeek and up towards crossroads."
The obituary from his school: "Holding a commission in the Otago Infantry Regiment, left with the 3rd Reinforcements in February, 1915. He landed in Egypt in April and Gallipoli on May 8th. His brother, Herbert, was killed next day, but George was in the evacuation and went over to France with the N.Z. Division. He received very serious gunshot wounds in the chest at Armentieres on June 29th, 1916, and had to remain in hospital for several months. As soon as he had recovered sufficiently he was given work at Codford and Sling camps, where he passed for his commission and returned to the trenches on June 29th, 1917, exactly a year later. He was killed on October 12th, 1917, while leading his company at the battle of Belle Vue Spur, four miles east of Ypres. He proved himself an officer of great ability, and was both trusted and beloved by his men. His colonel spoke of his as 'a splendid example of a soldier and a gentleman.'" (In Memoriam, 1914-1918 [Wanganui Collegiate School])
His death was another blow to his parents, Nellie and Herbert Knight, who had already lost their son Herbert Augustine Knight (8/1533) at Gallipoli.
Auckland Museum's 'Scars on the Heart' World War I exhibits 'On the Fringe of Hell' and 'The Last Post'. Display item is a quotation from a poem by Sybil Lee, taken from a letter sent to Ellen Knight after the death of her son George "Over the hill he lies there sleeping. And spring has come; he loved the spring" The full poem reads:
Over the hill he lies there sleeping
And spring has come; & he loved the Spring
With its trees & its hills & just everything
Mantled again with the green. And the glad birds sleeping.
The whole warm world in their joy as they sing.
They all were his & his the keeping,
The blossoming bud & the butterfly,
The sailing white cloud & the blue of the sky.
And over the hill he lies there, sleeping.
“He scarce had need to doff his pride
Or slough the dress of Earth –
E’en as he trod to God, so walked he from his birth
In simpleness, in gentleness & Honour & clean mirth.”
Written to Ellen Knight by Sybil Lee in a letter dated 14 November 1917 after her son, Second Lieutenant George Bernard Knight, was killed at Passchendaele 12 October 1917. Published in the book Nancy Croad, 'My dear Home: The Letters of three Knight brothers who gave their lives during WWI', Auckland, 1995.
Next of Kin: Mr H. D. Knight, Mokorua Whakatane (Roll of Honour, Auckland Province 1914-1918 (Volume 1)) AWMM
About death
- Death
- 12 Oct 1917 AWMM
Age 24 AWMM - Date of death
- —
- Age at death
- —
- Place of death
- —
- Cause of death
- Killed in Action AWMM
- Death notes
- —
- Cemetery
- —
- Cemetery name
- —
- Grave reference
- —
- Obituary
- —
- Memorial name
- —
- Memorial reference
- —
Memorial
- Memorial name
- Tyne Cot Memorial, Tyne Cot Cemetery, Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium AWMM
- Auckland War Memorial Museum, World War 1 Hall of Memories AWMM
Related objects
Related Serviceperson
Sources
- External links
- Military personnel file
https://collections.archives.govt.nz/web/arena/search/#/entity/aims-archive/R18057902
Further Reference - Passchendaele Casualty form.
http://web.archive.org/web/20180129035740/http://www.archives.govt.nz/exhibitions/passchendaele/view?pid=archives:13244
Further Reference - Andrew Stone, '100 Kiwi Stories from WWI: Mother of 10 carried sad burden', New Zealand Herald, 2 April 2015
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11426616
Further Reference - A Street Near You record
https://astreetnearyou.org/person/847774/-
Further Reference - Commonwealth War Graves Commission Casualty record
https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/847774
Further Reference - Passchendaele Museum Profile
https://archives.passchendaele.be/en/soldier/3087
Further Reference - New Zealand War Graves Trust
https://www.nzwargraves.org.nz/
Further Reference
- Military personnel file
- References
- Macdonald, L. (1978). Passchendaele : the story of the third Battle of Ypres 1917. London : Penguin Books.
- Harper, G. (2000). Massacre at Passchendaele : the New Zealand story. Auckland, N.Z.: HarperCollins.
- Scadden, J. (2018). Broken branches : New Zealand families who lost three or more children in the Great War.
- New Zealand Army Expeditionary Force. (1914-1919). Nominal Rolls of New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Volume I. Wellington, N.Z.: Govt. Printer.
Vol1: 399 - Scars on the heart: two centuries of New Zealand at war
Pugsley, C. (1996). pp. 71-72. - Croad, N. (1995). My Dear Home: The letters of three Knight brothers who gave their lives during WWI. Auckland, N.Z.: Nancy Croad.
- Studholme, J. (1928). New Zealand Expeditionary Force record of personal services during the war of officers, nurses, and first-class warrant officers, and other facts relating to the N.Z.E.F. : unofficial but based on official records. Wellington, N.Z.: Government Printer.
Studholme, J. (1928). p. 179. - New Zealand Army. (1990-2008). Wellington, N.Z.: Army General Staff.
Portraits of Passchendaele. (2004, 6 July). Army News, Issue 312, p. 12 - Beattie, P.J. & Pomeroy, M. (2013-2020). Onward : portraits of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (vols 1-5). Auckland, New Zealand: Fair Dinkum Publications
Vol. 1: Includes portrait - The Fields of Remembrance Trust: Brothers Field, Auckland Museum (Armistice, 2018)
- Information kindly provided by family
- Roll of Honour, Auckland Province (digital copy), 1914 - 1919. Auckland War Memorial Museum Library. MS-2016-2.
- Waite, F. (1919). The New Zealanders at Gallipoli. Auckland, N.Z.: Printed and published under Authority of the New Zealand Government by Whitcombe & Tombs.
- Byrne, A. E. Official History of the Otago Regiment, NZEF in the Great War, 1914–1918. Dunedin: J. Wilkie, 1921.
The development of the Online Cenotaph is an ongoing process; updates, new images and records are added weekly. In some cases, records have yet to be confirmed by Museum staff, and there could be mistakes or omissions in the information provided.
Online Cenotaph Data by Auckland War Memorial Museum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.