Jim Bishop

Artist’s impression based on a 1965 Puke Ariki photograph of “Jim Bishop, Serviceman”, aged down. Identity probable but not confirmed.

Private 801892 · D Company, 28th (Māori) Battalion · Wounded in Italy

Early life

Jim Bishop grew up at Rāhotu in Taranaki. A Jim Bishop appears as a primer at Rāhotu School in 1930, dressed as a clown for a school event, and this is probably him. Before the war he worked as a cheese factory hand. He was single when he enlisted, and his next of kin was his mother, Mrs J. S. Bishop of Lower Kāhui Road, Rāhotu.

War

On 9 March 1943 the Rāhotu community held a social and dance at the Rāhotu Hall in his honour before he left. He sailed with the reinforcements of April to June 1943 and joined D Company of the 28th (Māori) Battalion in Italy. His name appears in the wounded lists published on 7 January and 23 March 1944. Going by those dates, he was probably wounded in the fighting around Orsogna in December 1943 and then at Cassino in early 1944. It isn’t yet known whether these were two separate wounds.

After the war

By August 1944 Jim was home. He was one of four returned men honoured at a dance at Rāhotu that month. In 1947 a Jim Bishop of Rāhotu gave to the district’s Food for Smethwick appeal, which sent food parcels to a bombed English town. A 1965 photograph in the Puke Ariki collection shows a Jim Bishop in New Zealand Regiment uniform, which suggests he may have served again. Paul Bishop (414038), also of Rāhotu and also in D Company, may have been his brother.

Sources: Auckland Museum Online Cenotaph C120294; 28th Māori Battalion website; Taranaki Daily News 8 Mar 1943, 26 Aug 1944; Greymouth Evening Star 7 Jan 1944, 23 Mar 1944; Opunake Times 15 Jul 1947; Puke Ariki collection.