WW1 Norman James Beattie

Beattie Norman James

Norman James Beattie When World War One broke out in 1914, Norman Beattie lived in Orakei Rd Remuera and worked as a chauffeur/first class motor driver for C R Anderson of ‘Lingarth’, Orakei Rd, Remuera.


He was born in Halcombe in the Manawatu/Wanganui region on 27 September 1894, the son of the late Mr. Henry Beattie and Mrs. Amy Beattie, Weka St, Taihape. He enlisted age 20 in November 2014 and his military record describes him as 5ft 9inches with fair hair and blue eyes, and an Anglican. He joined the A Squadron, Auckland Mounted Rifles of the 4th Reinforcements as a trooper (Regimental No. 13/885). He sailed from New Zealand on 18 April 1915, a week before the disastrous allied landing at ANZAC Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula. He was posted to the Dardanelles on 16 August 1915 and killed in action days later on 28 August 1915, one month before his 21st birthday.

Norman Beattie was part of the last desperate charge by the New Zealanders in the Gallipoli campaign to take Hill 60 on the edge of the Suvla plain just north of the Anzac area. The first attempt to take the hill from its Turkish defenders was made on 21 August as part of an unsuccessful general attack at Suvla that left 5000 casualties on the Allied side. Six days later, the remnants of the whole brigade (about 300 men, down from the 1865 who landed in May) made another daylight attack that extended the line but again failed to capture the target. The British historian Robert Rhodes James later wrote that ‘For connoisseurs of military futility, valour, incompetence and determination, the attacks on Hill 60 are in a class of their own.’ (http://www.anzac.govt.nz/gallipoliguide/hill60.html)

Norman Beattie is recorded on the Hill 60 N Z Memorial to the Missing at Gallipoli in Turkey. He is also remembered in Remuera on the WW1 memorial at St Aidan’s Church, Remuera Road.