Thomas Samuel Tooman

Born 15 Jun 1886 - Died 7 Nov 1956

Service number: WWI 26/918 AWMM
Also known as: —
Armed force / branch: Army AWMM
Last rank: WW1
Rifleman AWMM
War: World War I, 1914-1918 AWMM

Thomas Samuel Tooman — Portrait, published in the newspaper and reporting he was seriously gassed - No known copyright restrictions No Known Copyright Restrictions

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Biographical information

Husband of Kath Butcher

Brothers Frank John (3/1202) and Thomas Samuel Tooman (26/918) served in WW1

Tom was the handler of Caesar, a Red Cross dog, and he wrote letters during the war about Caesar to his niece Ida in New Zealand. Ida later retold the stories to her daughter Patricia Stroud, who subsequently published her account as "Caesar the ANZAC dog". Tom met his future wife, Kath Butcher, because she, then serving as a British Red Cross Nurse, fed and made a fuss of Caesar in the Nursing Station.

Thomas Samuel Tooman (26/918) was a New Zealand soldier closely associated with Caesar, one of the most recognised war dogs in New Zealand’s military history. Born in Auckland on 15 June 1886, Tooman enlisted on 13 October 1915 and served with A Company, 4th Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade.

Caesar, a bulldog and unit mascot, accompanied the battalion from New Zealand to Egypt in early 1916. There, Tooman trained as an ambulance driver while Caesar was trained as a Red Cross dog, working in support of the same medical operations. Deployed to France, Caesar served on the Somme, locating wounded soldiers and carrying medical supplies and messages across heavily shelled ground. Caesar’s work assisted stretcher bearers in finding men who might otherwise have been overlooked. He was killed in action in France in August 1916, found in no man’s land beside a fallen soldier.

Caesar’s death deeply affected Tooman. Family accounts record his grief, and after returning to New Zealand he kept Caesar’s portrait displayed in his home. Tooman married Kath Butcher, a Red Cross nurse he met overseas, and died in Auckland in 1956. He is buried at Waikaraka Cemetery.
Their story has been preserved through family memory, particularly by Patricia Stroud (1939–2025), Tooman’s great-niece and a long-serving Auckland Museum volunteer. Together, their history reflects the role of animals in wartime service and remembrance (Profile written for “A Flight to Remember”, an Anzac Day 2026 initiative by Online Cenotaph and Air New Zealand). AWMM

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Online Cenotaph Data by Auckland War Memorial Museum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Thomas Samuel Tooman