Who Went
I guess it would be fair to say that the entries in the World War II 2nd N.Z.E.F. Nominal Rolls have played a pivotal role in the creation of the Freedom’s Call 2nd N.Z.E.F. Roll of Honour.
German soldiers with a trench mortar, Libya. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch :Photographs relating to World War 1914-1918, World War 1939-1945, occupation of Japan, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Ref: DA-08295-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22889267
“Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.”
The original construct envisaged was that the entries would faithfully mirror the information recorded on the Nominal Rolls, even if some of the information there was glaringly incorrect, i.e, because of misspelling, lax recording of essential details, incorrect transposition etc. Naturally, due note was taken of Errata subsequently published, correcting a few of the original entries.
When the first of two complete trawls of the nominal rolls was undertaken, fewer criteria and a narrow search area was chosen. But, with the passage of the years and more and more information becoming available online, when a second trawl was undertaken, both the selection criteria and the search area were widened. From just a small area comprising Whangarei and surrounds we were now opening up to everything from the North Cape down to Wellsford.