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Gordon Grant Sutherland, service number 16180
This portrait depicts Driver Gordon Grant Sutherland, service number 16180, New Zealand Army Service Corps.
When he enlisted for military service at Featherston on 10 March 1916, Gordon was twenty years old and had been working as a butcher in his home town, Duntroon, South Canterbury. Gordon was posted the next day to the Army Service Corps as a Driver. He embarked from Wellington for overseas service with the 14th Reinforcements on 26 June 1916, bound for England. He trained at Sling camp from 23 August till 2 September, then joined No.1 Company of the Army Service Corps in France on 16 November.
His duties involved driving horse or mule-drawn wagons carrying ammunition, food and other supplies, often under enemy shellfire and aerial bombardment. He would also have had to care for the animals in his teams. On 15 October 1917, possibly as a respite from this duty, he was transferred to the Divisional Horse-Clipping Depot where he stayed till 11 December. Armies used many thousands of horses and mules on the Western Front and their coats were clipped to control skin infections and parasites.
Gordon rejoined his Army Service Corps unit until 5 February 1918 when he went back to the Horse-Clipping Depot. On 24 February he joined the Headquarters Company of the Army Service Corps. He embarked from England for New Zealand on 17 May 1919 and was discharged from the NZEF on 21 July 1919. Gordon endured three European winters during his military service, which may account for his application only six weeks after his discharge for medical treatment at the expense of the Defence Department. He complained of pain in his ankle, knee and hip joints, and was diagnosed as suffering from 'Chronic articular rheumatism'. The examining Medical Officer recommended that Gordon be treated at the thermal baths at Rotorua, but his superior allocated Gordon to Oamaru Hospital as an out-patient instead.
After the war Gordon married Bessie Jane Parker in 1927, they had one child, Jean Isabell. Gordon died at Oamaru on 21 April 1947, aged only 51. Bessie outlived him by more than thirty years, passing away on 27 May 1978.