Hiko Andrew
Private 68367 · D Company, 28th (Māori) Battalion · Wounded, Italy 1943
Early life
Hiko Andrew was born on 26 November 1919 and lived in the Waitai Valley, near Wairoa. His family say he enlisted at Wairoa while still under age. By the time he sailed he was married to Beulah, who lived in Hastings, and he was working as a labourer.
War
Hiko first served with the 2nd Māori Battalion in New Zealand in 1942–43, then sailed in 1943 to join the 28th as a lance corporal. He was badly wounded in Italy during the fighting on the Sangro and at Orsogna, and his name appeared in the casualty lists in January 1944. He lost a lung and was sent home.
After the war
Hiko spent years recovering, for a time in an iron lung, and lived the rest of his life on one lung. His family remember a man who dealt with the war by telling funny stories, like the jeep’s spare tyre he sold to an Egyptian two or three times, and the pig taken for a hāngī. Hiko died in Rotorua on 27 January 1985, aged 65, and is buried in Rotorua Cemetery with Beulah, who died in 2001.
Sources
Online Cenotaph C120288; 28th Māori Battalion website; Evening Post, 7 January 1944; Rotorua Cemetery.
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