Most decorated · 6 medals and honours, 3 for gallantry
Second Lieutenant William Cooke
William Bertram Cooke sailed with the Main Body in October 1914 as a private in the New Zealand Field Ambulance and finished the war as an infantry officer in the 2nd Battalion, Wellington Regiment. He won the Military Medal at Cape Helles in May 1915 for carrying messages across open ground under fire, a bar to it on the Somme in September 1916 for leading stretcher-bearers through shellfire, and the Military Cross at Crevecoeur on 1 October 1918 for holding a flank platoon in an exposed position. That makes three gallantry awards, all won in different roles.
6medals and honours
3of them for gallantry
His medals and honours
Won for gallantry
Gallantry award
Military Medal
8-9 May 1915 · Cape Helles, Gallipoli peninsula · Private, New Zealand Field Ambulance, NZ Medical Corps
Gazetted: London Gazette 29780 (2nd supplement), 11 October 1916, p. 9839; listed as 3/96 Pte W. B. Cooke, A.M.C., New Zealand Contingent
In early May 1915 the New Zealand Infantry Brigade was lent to the British at Cape Helles for the Second Battle of Krithia, and the New Zealand field ambulance bearer parties went with it. They landed at V Beach on the night of 5 May and set up an advanced dressing station near Pink Farm on the 8th. On the morning of 8 May the brigade attacked in waves at 10.30 and gained only about 400 yards, ending up dug in some 300 yards short of Krithia village. Over those few days the brigade lost around 780 men killed, wounded or missing. Cooke's part, as the recommendation describes it, was as a messenger. On 8 and 9 May he carried several messages from the Field Ambulance dressing station up to Brigade Headquarters, crossing open ground that was swept by artillery and rifle fire each time he went. It was a job done on foot, in the open, between the wounded and the officers directing the fighting. He was a private at the time and the citation singles out his repeated trips, not a single dramatic moment. The award was gazetted more than seventeen months later, in a long list of Military Medals for services over the Gallipoli campaign.
The gazette itself gives no citation, only the name, number and unit; the wording of what he did comes from McDonald's NZEF honours book and the NZEF Project database, which quote the same recommendation. The gazette notes that the ranks shown may differ from those held when the deed was done. The detail on the wider fighting at Helles is from Carbery's Medical Service history; it does not mention Cooke by name.
Counted in his gallantry totalSource: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/29780/supplement/9839 ; https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/assets/Uploads/Medals/British-Commonwealth-Gallantry-Meritorious-and-Distinguished-Service-Awards/NZEFHonoursandAwardsWayneMcDonald3rdedition.pdf (p. 52) ; https://nzef.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=52298 ; https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1-Medi-t1-g1-t1-body-d3-d5.html
Bar: a second award
Bar to the Military Medal
16 September 1916 · The Somme, near Flers (Thistle Dump / Flat Iron Copse area) · Corporal, No. 3 Field Ambulance, NZ Medical Corps
Gazetted: London Gazette 29893 (supplement), 6 January 1917, p. 351 (Bars list; Cpl W. B. Cooke, N.Z. Med. Corps; first award published LG 11 October 1916)
The New Zealand Division fought its first big battle on the Somme on 15 September 1916, taking Flers with the help of tanks. The cost in wounded was heavy, and the bearers of No. 2 Field Ambulance were worn out by evening, so bearer parties from No. 1 and No. 3 Field Ambulances were called forward. By 11 p.m. on the 15th the bearers of No. 3 Field Ambulance had taken over at Thistle Dump, the relay post on the long carry back from the front line, and they kept working through the next day. The ground made it a hard job: stretchers had to be taken across the crest in the open, under enemy shell barrage, because the communication trenches were smashed. Corporal Cooke was in charge of a bearer party. For 16 September the recommendation credits him with showing great courage and presence of mind in leading his bearers through heavy fire, and says that by his example he brought in many wounded men who would otherwise have been lost. New Zealand newspapers reported the bar on 8 January 1917, two days after the gazette. By then he had risen from private to corporal.
The gazette page only lists his name under 'Bar to their Military Medal'. The citation text is from McDonald and the NZEF Project. Carbery's account describes No. 3 Field Ambulance bearers at Thistle Dump on 15-16 September in general terms; it does not name Cooke or say which post his party worked from, so the location above is context, not a record of his own route.
Counted in his gallantry totalSource: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/29893/supplement/351 ; https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/assets/Uploads/Medals/British-Commonwealth-Gallantry-Meritorious-and-Distinguished-Service-Awards/NZEFHonoursandAwardsWayneMcDonald3rdedition.pdf (p. 52) ; https://nzef.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=52298 ; https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19170108.2.94 ; https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1-Medi-t1-g1-t1-body-d9-d2.html
Gallantry award
Military Cross
1 October 1918 · Crevecoeur-sur-l'Escaut, east of the St Quentin (Scheldt) Canal, near Cambrai · Second Lieutenant, 2nd Battalion, Wellington Infantry Regiment (Ruahine Company)
Gazetted: London Gazette 31158 (supplement), 1 February 1919, p. 1740; listed as 2nd Lt William Bertram Cooke, M.M., 2nd Bn, Wellington R.
By 1918 Cooke had left the ambulance and been commissioned into the Wellington Regiment. On the night of 30 September to 1 October the 1st Brigade crossed the canal by a wooden bridge and formed up north of Crevecoeur, with 2nd Wellington on the right and 1st Auckland on the left. At 6 a.m. the barrage opened, and by 8 a.m. 2nd Wellington had taken Crevecoeur and about 150 prisoners. Then the Germans counter-attacked from Seranvillers and the north, falling on 1st Auckland, which had to give ground, and on 2nd Wellington's left company, Ruahine Company. Cooke commanded a platoon on that company's flank. The citation says that when the company was cut off he held on in a very exposed position and walked among his men, encouraging them. The battalion history agrees: it says he did so with no thought for his own safety. Ruahine Company lost half its men but refused to give up ground, and the history credits its stand with saving the whole brigade front that day. The battalion's losses were four officers and 142 other ranks. After dark on 3 October it was relieved. Cooke had won his first two medals as a stretcher-bearer and his third leading infantry.
The gazette spells the place 'Crevecour'. The gazette and McDonald call him 2nd Lieutenant, the Wellington Regiment history (1928) calls him Lieutenant; the date of his commission was not found.
Counted in his gallantry totalSource: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/31158/supplement/1740 ; https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/assets/Uploads/Medals/British-Commonwealth-Gallantry-Meritorious-and-Distinguished-Service-Awards/NZEFHonoursandAwardsWayneMcDonald3rdedition.pdf (p. 52) ; https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1-Well-t1-body-d48.html
Every other medal and honour (3)
1914-15 Star1914 to 1915 · Egypt and GallipoliHe embarked with the Main Body in October 1914 and was serving at Cape Helles by May 1915, which qualifies him for the Star.British War Medal 1914-201914 to 1919Awarded for service overseas in the war. Listed on the Online Cenotaph record.Victory Medal1914 to 1919Awarded for service in a theatre of war. Listed on the Online Cenotaph record.
His story
Wellington and Christchurch
Cooke is recorded as the eldest son of Mrs J. Cooke of 33 Haast Street, Linwood, Christchurch. By 1914 he was married to Elizabeth and living at 93 Todman Street, Brooklyn, Wellington. His birth date and occupation were not found.
A private, number 3/96, in the Main Body's field ambulance, he embarked at Wellington on HMNZT 8 Star of India. Online Cenotaph gives arrival in Egypt as 3 December 1914.
With the New Zealand Brigade on loan to the British at Helles, he carried messages from the ambulance station to brigade headquarters on 8 and 9 May and later won the Military Medal.
Now a corporal in No. 3 Field Ambulance, he led bearers through shellfire on 16 September at Flers, the Division's first major battle on the Somme. He was gazetted a bar to the Military Medal on 6 January 1917.
He commanded a flank platoon in Ruahine Company when the Germans counter-attacked after Crevecoeur had been taken, and held his ground. The Military Cross followed on 1 February 1919.
The ranks he held, and the badge a soldier of that rank wore. These are simplified illustrations.
PrivateOctober 1914 (embarkation); still a private in May 1915No rank badge: a private soldier wore noneCorporalBy September 1916Two chevronsSecond LieutenantBy 1 October 1918 (date of commission not found)Shoulder strap: one pip
His ships
HMNZT 8 Star of IndiaOutward troopship, Main Body, 16 October 1914Carried the NZ Field Ambulance and other Main Body units. Return voyage not found.
Afterwards
Cooke's life after 1919 is thinly recorded. Online Cenotaph gives him a second service number, 800680, from the Second World War, but no dates, no later rank and no place of death, and none of the sources checked gave a birth or death date. The record says he was the eldest son of Mrs J. Cooke of Linwood in Christchurch and that he was married to Elizabeth before he sailed.
What stands out is the range: he won two awards as a stretcher-bearer and one as an infantry platoon commander. The 1928 Wellington Regiment history notes his Military Medal and bar from the Medical Corps in the same passage that describes his Military Cross action.
This is the Service Record sign as we would make it from his record: his rank, name, regiment, number and date of embarkation. The medals on the sign are worked out automatically, so the medals listed above are the ones to rely on.
The Service Record
Photograph
We haven’t hosted a photograph here
Rather than copy someone else’s image onto our own site, we’d rather send you to see it where it’s properly held: his full record at the Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Online Cenotaph.
Identity: anchored on regimental number 3/96 and the name W. B. Cooke, which match across the three gazette entries (Pte A.M.C. 1916; Cpl N.Z. Med. Corps 1917; 2nd Lt M.M., 2nd Bn Wellington R. 1919), McDonald (one entry under 3/96 with all three awards), the NZEF Project and Online Cenotaph. The Wellington Regiment history independently says the officer had won the MM and bar with the Medical Corps. Note that other Cookes in the NZEF (Arthur Campbell 2/2598, Harry 14587, Philip Brunskill 4/1075) have separate MM/MC entries and are not him.
Online Cenotaph lists the awards as 'MM and bar' plus MC; the gazette pages confirm all three separately. Gallantry count is 3.
Birth date, birthplace, occupation, commission date, WW2 service details and death were not found. Online Cenotaph gives no birth or death dates. The cenotaph note about Linwood, Christchurch mentions only his mother; his own pre-war address was in Wellington.
Rank: gazette and McDonald say 2nd Lieutenant; the Wellington Regiment history (1928) says Lieutenant. Titled 'Second Lieutenant' here because that is the gazetted rank; he may have been promoted to Lieutenant before discharge.
1914-15 Star is not on the Online Cenotaph award list; included as an inference from his Main Body embarkation and Gallipoli service. Totals: 6 with it, 5 without.
The citations for the MM and bar come from McDonald and the NZEF Project; the gazette pages for those two awards carry names only.
No mention in despatches found for him in the sources checked.
The Wellington Regiment history chapter was read through an archived copy (web.archive.org of nzetc.victoria.ac.nz); the text is the 1928 publication. Papers Past searches for his later life did not return results (search page timed out).
