March 13, 2013
Māori Battalion veteran Aubrey Balzer one of the lucky
Te Arawa and the motu are mourning one of the last officers of the 28th Māori Battalion.
Aubrey Huia Balzer died while mowing lawns at his beach house in Maketu on Sunday when he died suddenly.
He was 92.
Mr Balzer served in the B Company in North Africa and Italy, rising to the rank of lieutenant.
He stayed in the army for another two decades after World War 2, ending with the rank of Colonel as commanding officer of the 6th Hauraki Regiment.
In a speech after a return visit to Italy in 2011, Mr Balzer described how the New Zealand Division was thrown into an attack role it was not resourced for.
“I was one of the lucky ones. I got knocked out unconscious a couple of times, ruptured my ear drum and my younger brother was killed in his first action. My oldest brother got seriously wounded. The Maori Battalion actually suffered one in every six in action got killed and two out of every three wounded,” he says.
A service will be held for Aubrey Balzer at the Living Well Church on Biak Street in Rotorua from 1pm on Friday.
Meanwhile, seven of the 23 surviving Māori Battalion veterans attended a ceremony yesterday to gift a greenstone mere to the National Army Museum in Waiouru.
The mere was donated to the 28th Māori Battalion (NZ) Association in 2000 by D Company veteran Tahu Potiki Hopkinson, and on the wind-up of the association, its members decided the museum should be its kaitiaki.
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