Rifleman John Mars
‘B’ Company 4th Battalion, 3rd New Zealand Rifle Brigade (Earl of Liverpool's Own)
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: Quarter 4, 1882, registered in Newton Abbot
Place of Birth: Teignmouth, Devon
Date of Death: 15 September 1916, aged 36
Buried: Remembered on Caterpillar Valley (New Zealand) Memorial, Somme; and Seafront Memorial, Teignmouth.
Rifleman John Mars age 36.
John was born in Teignmouth in 1882 registered in Quarter 4, Newton Abbot, (he has put 1880 on army enlistment form and 1881 on naval form).
By the age of 8 he was living at Newton Abbot Workhouse with his sister Annie age 9, and his brother George age 6.
In 1900 he joined the Royal Navy where he spent 2 years at HMS Cambridge which was a Gunnery Training ship moored in Plymouth Sound, his trade was a Domestic 3rd class. He was shown at HMS Cambridge on 1901 census.
Shortly before he was discharged as unfit in 1902 he had spent 5 days in the cells. In 1909 he was a member of the crew of the ‘Cearense’ a merchant ship registered in Liverpool.
On 12 October 1915 whilst living in Wellington, New Zealand, he enlisted in ‘B’ Company 4th Battalion, 3rd New Zealand Rifle Brigade, service number 26/363.
John Mars Memorial Plaque
Embarking for France on 7 April 1916 he was soon in trouble and awarded 28 days field punishment No 2; on August 6 he was awarded a further 56 days field punishment.
Field punishment No 2 meant that he could be kept in irons or handcuffed (but not to a fixed object) he would have carried on with his normal duties or given extra fatigues.
On September 3 he was deprived of 14 days’ pay having been found guilty of drunkenness, John was killed in action on 15 September 1916.
His next of kin were recorded as his sisters, Mrs. E Bird of Penarth, South Wales and Mrs. Alma Hughson of 2 Crown Square, Shaldon.
Remembered on Caterpillar Valley (New Zealand) Memorial, Somme; and Seafront Memorial, Teignmouth.
New Zealand soldiers at the front operating a mortar.. Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association :New Zealand official negatives, World War 1914-1918. Ref: 1/2-013798-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/National Library of New Zealand
