Born: Whangarei 9 November 1897

Enlisted: 24 September 1917, aged 19

Height/weight: 5ft 11in, 140lbs

Died: 23 August 1972, aged 74

Occupation: Clerk

New Zealand Medical Corps

I f contemporary accounts are to be believed, the H.S. Maheno, one of New Zealand’s

hospital ships, was like a “floating palace”.

The Maheno, a former passenger steamer, was fitted out to the highest standard. New Zealand’s other hospital ship was the Marama, which sported similar fittings.

In 1918, one staff member on the H.S Maheno was 19 year old Allan McKinnon, a clerk from the Department of Education. He’d served part of the previous year with the New Zealand Garrison Artillery at Fort Dorset, Wellington, before forming part of the New Zealand Medical Corps.

Allan was likely a medical orderly and worked alongside officers, surgeons, physicians, army chaplains and nurses. Allan spent most of 1918 on the ship.

However, the above description of the Maheno belies the ship’s true purpose. If you were a patient on the Maheno, you were seriously wounded and being taken back to New Zealand or the UK. For the majority of the staff – the orderlies like Allan – life wasn’t that comfortable.

Here’s what the New Zealand History website had to say about conditions on board the Maheno for orderlies:

“The army personnel were crowded together and dined according to peacetime third-class standards. The army never got the orderlies’ accommodation on the Maheno quite right, a problem for the men who performed some of the most physically taxing duties on the ship. Serving on a hospital ship was not always good for your health, even if you were a medic. During the Marama’s first commission over 60% of the orderlies fell sick, as did 40% of the nurses and all but one doctor. Crew fell victim to the usual accidents created by moving machinery and handling derricks and mooring ropes.”

Still worse was to come when the Germans began losing the upper hand in the war and starting attacking hospital ships.

However, despite the discomfort and danger, Allan and the Maheno made it through the war unscathed. In late October 1918, Allan was sent back to New Zealand for home duty. The Maheno and Marama also returned home having transported 47,000 patients by the end of the war.

Allan returned to the Department of Education and eventually became an accountant for the special education branch. He served in New Zealand in World War II

but was discharged after 80 days service for reasons that aren’t disclosed on his file. Allan retired from the Department in 1954.

Allan married Marjorie Gibson Clough in 1939 and the couple lived in Kilbirnie, Wellington, for a while before moving to Lower Hutt. They had at least two children. Allan died in 1972 aged 74 with Marjorie following him in 1991, aged 80.

Pictured:

Left: The H.S. Maheno.

Right: A portrait of a “Private McKinnon” of the New Zealand Medical Corps in 1917. It’s either Allan or his brother Albert who also served in the Medical Corps, but more likely Allan as he left for service in 1917 and portraits tended to be taken before they left.

Sources:

Photo credit (left): ‘Gallipoli calls’, nzhistory.net.nz/war/first- world-war-hospital-ships/gallipoli-calls, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 19-Aug-2014

Photo credit (right): Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 31-K2793’

Archives New Zealand

Births, Deaths and Marriages Online

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Private Allan Ernest MCKINNON

Service No. 3/3999