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Final rank:

Private

First name/s

Nikau

Last name

TETE

Service number and Regiment/Unit/Corps

19284
New Zealand Māori (Pioneer) Battalion, Rarotongan Company

Also known as

Nikau TETEVANO
John MOKOENGA

Date of birth

1898

Place of birth

Aitutaki, Cook Islands

Date of death

12/10/1918

Place of death

Egypt

Death registration number

NZ1918/67400
(New Zealand post war death registration)

Headstone/grave location

Kantara War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt

Next of kin

John Mokoenga (father), Aitutaki, Cook Islands

Additional information

Enlisted 9 July 1916 and disembarked SS Malwa at Suez 27 December 1916 and posted to the NZ Mounted Rifles Bde Training Regiment and Base Depot. Posted to the Rarotongan Company 17 March 1917 and detached to 10th Heavy Battery Royal Artillery from 5 October 1917 to 9 November 1917. Admitted to Casualty Clearing Station at Ludd on 2 October 1918 and then 47th Stationary Hospital at Gaza 4 October 1918. Died 12 October 1918 in Egypt from influenza and pneumonia. Buried in European Cemetery, Kantara with Chaplain A.E. Forest C/F officiating. Later interred in Kantara War Memorial Cemetery, Palestine. Rarotongan Government roll of servicemen prepared in 1926 indicates his surname and Christian names were transposed. Cook Islands Roll of Honour board at RSA Nikao Rarotonga records his name as 'Nikau', while his Commonwealth War Graves Commission military headstone records his name as 'Nikau Tete'.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemoration:
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/475535/nikau-tete/

Images and documents (click on images to enlarge)

Image credits and references

Headstone image source: https://www.nzwargraves.org.nz/casualties/nikau-tete

Commemorative certificate courtesy of Commonwealth War Graves Commission:
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/475535/nikau-tete/

​Further links

N/A

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