Lt. Col. Eruera Tui Te Whiti O Rongomai (Edward) Love

Eruera Te Whiti o Rongomai Love (18 May 1905 – 12 July 1942) was a New Zealand rugby player, interpreter and military leader. Of Māori descent, he identified with the Te Ati Awa iwi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruera_Love

• Rank: Lieutenant Colonel
• Service No: 6133
• Date of Death:12/07/1942
• Regiment/Service: New Zealand Infantry Cdg. 28th (Maori) Bn.
• Awards: Mentioned in Despatches
• Grave Reference: VIII. J. 16.
• Cemetery: EL ALAMEIN WAR CEMETERY
  
  

Eruera (Edward) Te Whiti o Rongomai Love (18 May 1905–1942) was a New Zealand rugby player, interpreter and military leader. Of Māori descent, he identified with the Te Ati Awa iwi.

One of seven surviving children of Wi Hapi Pakau Love and Ripeka Wharawhara Love, he was born at the Top House, the Love family’s homestead in Waikawa Bay in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand on 18 May 1905. A Territorial officer, during World War II, he was a company commander and later battalion commander of the Maori Battalion. He was killed in action in the Western Desert on July 12, 1942.

Biography:

• Susan Love De Miguel. 'Love, Eruera Te Whiti o Rongomai', from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Obituary:

First Maori to command the Maori Battalion. His mother Repeka Wharawhara Love (OBE) was a great-grand-child of Sir Mungo Park, whose son, Mr Robert Park of Scotland, was the surveyor who accompanied Colonel Wakefield of New Zealand. While his father Wi Hapi Love, was the great-grandson of Jack Love (Hakirau), the only European who sign the Treaty of Waitangi as a Maori. Lieutenant-Colonel Love's widow was Mrs. Takau Rio Love, formerly of Petone, and now paramount chief, or Makea Nui Ariki, of Rarotonga. (Source: Maori Fallen, Evening Post Volume CXXXIV, Issue 22, 25 July 1942, p.6.)

Links:

• Cenotaph Record
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission Record
• New Zealand War Graves Record

• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Feb 25 2017, 20:24:34 UTC
• Residence: New Zealand