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As a young man in a young country and working in a modern industry (the railways), it is highly unlikely that John Francis Turnwald, known as Jack, would have expected to be dashing across the desert on a camel, defending oases in Palestine and Sinai.
He is more likely to have expected to go to Europe when he enlisted, aged 21, in January 1915, while working as a porter at Mt Eden Railway Station in Auckland.
Jack’s father, Bartolomous, had arrived in Puhoi with his parents Lorenz and Anna (nee Wacker) in 1863 aboard the War Spirit, as part of the first settlers there.
Bartolomous married his second wife, Anna Krohn in 1887 and Jack was born March 2, 1893. He was one of nine children and one of five Turnwald brothers and cousins who went to WWI.
After training in Wellington, Jack sailed on the Tahiti in June 1915 with the 5th Reinforcements for Mudros, Greece, where he was posted to the Auckland Mounted Rifles.
After serving at Gallipoli, he returned to Alexandria in December 1915 aboard the Hororata, and was sent to Zeitoun Camp and then on to patrol the Suez Canal Zone in January 1916 – the fighting he was engaged in included destroying or neutralizing enemy bases in Sinai. Jack was involved in battles at Katia and Salmana as well as Romani.
In the Battle at Bir el Abd in August 1916, Jack was wounded and admitted to hospital in Cairo.
On his release he moved on to his most exotic form of transport when he was transferred to Abbassia, where the Camel Corps trained, and then posted to the Imperial Camel Corps, becoming a “camelier” in September 1916.
The camel companies trained at El Mazaar oasis in Sinai and in December 1916, faced their first Battle at Magdhaba, where the Ottoman Forces were guarding an oasis. Access to wells was paramount to their survival and many battles and skirmishes took place around these resources. They also needed to protect the advance of the railways and pipeline across the desert to improve supply lines between bases and the highly mobile frontlines.
Jack survived the Battles of Romani, Magdhaba, Rafa and Gaza but in the field, he received wounds, from bombs, to his head and left side in June 1917. He was admitted from Rafa to the No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital at El Arish where he died aged 23.
Jack was buried in gravesite No 110 in El Arish and later moved to Kantara Cemetery in Egypt where his headstone now stands.
