Lieutenant 34162 Rupert Hember Glendining, 19th Armoured Regiment, New Zealand Armoured Corps

...was born the 16th January 1912, at Wairoa, New Zealand, one of two children, the son of Ernest Hember Glendining (1873 to 1953) and Mabel Elizabeth “Laura” nee Dampney (1848 to 1916).

Rupert was educated at Wanganui Collegiate School from 1926 to 1930 in “Selwyn” House. During his time there he was a sports team Captain, and head prefect and is remembered on the school Roll of Honour.

Following education, Rupert took to sheep farming, the occupation of his father and the 1943 electoral roll finds the family residing on a sheep farm at Wairoa, Hawkes Bay.

In 1938, he married Barbara Helen Baird (1915 to 1997). The couple had one child, John Hember Glendining (1941 to 2023). The family resided at 70 Cole Street, Masterton.

Following enlistment and training as an Officer Cadet, the 1941 Army roll records that he is one of a number of “ex-officer Cadets to be 2nd Lieutenant as from 5th April 1941”; later in the year, he was promoted to Lieutenant with the infantry. On the 20th of February 1944, he was made a Temporary Captain in the New Zealand Armoured Corps., but this was relinquished in April and he returned to the rank of Lieutenant.

The 19th Armoured Regiment was originally an infantry battalion until changing its role in 1942 whilst on active service in North Africa. Equipped with Sherman tanks, the Regiment went to Italy in October 1943 when it disembarked at Taranto.

From January 1944, the Regiment was heavily engaged in the battle to take the strategic town of Cassino, which was finally taken on the 18th of May but on the 15th, Lieutenant Glendining was killed whilst engaged in the reconnaissance of a forward position.

Rupert was buried with others close to where he fell. All were exhumed and reburied in Cassino War Cemetery on the 30th of January 1945.

The family received a letter from Captain 81229 Reverend J.S. Somerville with the 19th N.A. Armoured Regiment, dated the 22nd of June 1944.

“Dear Mrs. Glendining, I hope you will forgive the airgraph but I know how anxious you will be for news and this is the best way to send it. I want to say how much I sympathise with you in the loss of Rupert which you will have heard of by now. He was killed in the final assault on Cassino while making a courageous reconnaissance of a forward position. Fortunately he was killed outright and must not have known anything at all about it. His body was was very little marred and we buried him in our N.Z. Cemetery well back from the line a very beautiful spot among oak trees where many of his comrades lie together. We took a photo of the grave and in hoe in due course to send it on. Many of the boys who have been with him so long attended and helped to make the grave. We all had a very warm affection for Rupert; he’d been with us so long and was so keen and manly in all his ways. How he loved the hills of home and thoughts of you, I knew were never far away. Please believe me when I say that all of us are thinking of you and your little boy just now and I know that Rupert would want you to be brave. May God bless you and keep you and all his dear ones at home. Yours very sincerely J.S Somerville”

(letter - credit to New Zealand Archives) 

Cassino War Cemetery holds 4,277 Commonwealth War Graves, of which 3,992 are identified