BILLY KERR

Bombadier William Kerr was a comparatively long serving member of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Billy Kerr, as he was known to his comrades, had been born at Kaiapoi in 1880 and before enlistment had been a wool sorter at the Waingawa Freezing Works. He had enlisted in August 1914 and was assigned to the New Zealand Field Artillery. He served in Gallipoli and like many others was evacuated to England with dysentery in September 1915. Upon recovery, he arrived in France in time for the Somme Offensive and then moved with the Division further north around Armentieres and then to Ploegsteert Wood near Ypres. He was killed on 16 April 1917, possibly by German artillery counter-battery fire on the 12th Battery of which he was a member. Billy Kerr was buried in the Berks Cemetery Extension near Ploegsteert Wood south of Ypres in Belgium. He was also commemorated at Papanui and on an honours board as one of the seventeen men from Merivale Rugby Club to die in World War I. Later, his parents in Tomes Road received a poem written by one of his Comrades, Gunner S.V. Dunn, as a tribute to a fellow soldier.

A Tribute

The 12th Battery and the Main Body boys

All mourn for Billy Kerr, "one of the very best";

From the Path of Duty he never flinched,

And God knows he stood the test

 

Good-hearted, straight-forward and smiling,

Respected by us all;

He's left us but a memory -

A memory dear to all.

 

For the Motherland that claimed him,

For his loved ones o'er the sea;

He did his duty bravely,

In this fight for " Liberty ."

 

It was over in a moment,

Perhaps he never knew;

His work on earth was finished,

This soldier brave and true.

 

With Hill 63 for a background,

And Ploegsteert Wood on his right;

We laid him to rest in his "Winding Sheet",

Midst the roar of the battle might.

 

Way out beyond the "Southern Cross",

Way o'er the Tasman Sea ;

We send to those who mourn him,

Our deepest sympathy.

 

Should there be a "hereafter",

And whose's to say we err;

Some day we'll meet in a " Better Land ",

Our comrade, "Billy Kerr".

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