DOUGLAS McDONALD

On 22 August 1915, Sergeant Douglas McLean McDonald suffered a fatal abdominal wound as part of the Canterbury Mounted Rifles' futile assauslt on Hill 60. He had been born in Hastings in 1881, and prior to his enlistment he had been a government ranger with the Lands and Survey Department in Ashburton. His parents lived in Wanganui and he is one of a number of men recorded on local memorials who do not appear to have a clear local connection with the locality. He volunteered for service on 23 August 1914 and was posted to the Canterbury Mounted Rifles. He was dispatched with the Main Body on October 1915, but did not appear to have arrived in Gallipoli until the time of the Chunuk Bair battles of August 1915. Douglas McDonald was killed in action in the struggle for Hill 60 and is commemorated there on the New Zealand memorial.

Back to The Men from Papanui