History – Mounted rifles hear the call

Among the Warkworth Museum’s many stored artefacts is an old Rotospeed duplicator. It is recorded as coming from the orderlies’ room of the North Auckland Mounted Rifles (NAMF).

There’s also two NAMR badges. The badge shows a boar’s head denoting courage and ferocity, surrounded by fern leaves symbolising NZ, as well as the initials NAMR for North Auckland Mounted Rifles and their motto “kia tupato – be cautious”.

Considering this article appears soon after Anzac Day, I thought it would be interesting to find out more about these soldiers on horseback. From a box of related papers and various other sources, I can only say I found a minefield of contradictions and name changes.

It would appear that during the Boer War (1899-1902) at least four mounted companies were formed in Northland, and were known as the North Auckland Mounted Rifles. After the war, in 1902, the Rodney Mounted Rifles formed and attended a training camp at Takapuna.

In 1911, after a new Defence Act was passed, an Auckland Regiment of Mounted Rifles was formed, consisting of the 3rd Auckland Squadron, 4th Waikato Squadron and the 11th North Auckland Squadron. On 9 August 1914, the Auckland Mounted Rifle Squadron paraded in Warkworth before volunteers left for a training camp at the Epsom showgrounds. There were three other mounted rifle regiments – Wellington, Canterbury and Otago. These regiments provided 550 soldiers of all ranks, plus 608 horses, which included draught and pack horses. They served in WWI at Gallipoli as infantry, leaving their mounts in Egypt, then in Palestine and Sinai where they had the advantage of being able to patrol and reconnoitre large areas.

Among family records that the museum holds we have Fred Dill’s diary. He was part of the 3rd Auckland Sq. He was severely wounded in 1917 in the battle of Rafah and was left for dead, until found alive the following morning. Only four of the 608 horses that left NZ for WWI are documented as returning.

Between the two wars, Mounted Rifles squadrons continued to meet monthly and have one or two training camps a year. Several local names appear attending meetings or camps – Dill, Morrison, Algie, Wynyard and Wyatt. Fred Dill mentions attending annual camps with the AMR Sq., acknowledging that his wife would run the farm in his absence. Athol Morrison’s son Tom tells me that during the 1930s his father was part of a group of Mounted Rifles that trained on Dill’s farm. Athol was a superb horseman and crack shot and was able to teach others. In 1938, Fred was promoted to Lt Colonel and put in charge of his old squadron, now known as Auckland East MR. When war broke out at the end of 1939,

Fred volunteered to join the infantry as no mounted troops were expected to be going overseas.
In 1939, the Whangateau Domain was required for military use for armed forces. It was used as a military camp for the Mounted Rifles and, later, for American forces. In 1940, nine independent Mounted Rifle squadrons were set up under National Military Reserves. The 2nd Kaipara independent MR covered an area from Ruakaka to Silverdale with headquarters in Wellsford. These troops were mobilised for home defence and had to provide their own horses.

According to Athol’s story, and troop ship manifests that I found, at least two battalions of ‘cavalry’ (mounted troops) were sent to war in the Near East. When Athol’s battalion moved from Palestine to Maadi in Egypt, the horses were no longer required and soldiers were ordered to shoot their mounts. Around 1944, it seems the Mounted Rifles were absorbed into the NZ Armoured Corps.

If anyone has information about our local MR troops, we would love to hear from you. Please email info@warkworthmuseum.co.nz