Kara Aranui

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Portrait of Kara Aranui
Imagined portrait. No photograph of Kara is known.

Private 817526 · D Company, 28th (Māori) Battalion · 11th Reinforcements, 1944

Kara is a different man from Private K. Aranui of Rotorua, who climbed Takrouna with Haane Manahi in 1943.

Early life

Karaitiana (Kara) Aranui was born at Mohaka, in northern Hawke’s Bay, on 9 March 1924, the son of Iriapa Aranui and Rihi Bluett. He went to Te Aute College, and in December 1939, aged 15, he won the English and mathematics prize in the matriculation form, presented by the Governor-General. When he enlisted he was single and working as a labourer, and his sister, Mrs E. King of Raupunga, was his next of kin.

War

Kara sailed with the 11th Reinforcements early in 1944 and served with the battalion in Italy. Among his comrades he was known as “Duck”.

After the war

His family remember that he rarely spoke of his time overseas, and that his comrades came to his funeral. Kara died at Mohaka on 26 October 1995, aged 71.

Sources

Online Cenotaph C119684; Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune, 6 December 1939; FamilySearch.

Are you whānau? If you can add to his story, correct anything here or share a photograph, please get in touch.

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