Reginald Judson, VC, DCM, MM
1st Battalion Auckland Regiment

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Reginald Judson was born in Northland at Wharehine in 1881. After an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer he was working as a boilermaker in Auckland when WWI began. He enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and went overseas in 1916 serving with the Auckland Regiment and the NZ Rifle Brigade. He was badly wounded in September 1916 and did not return to the front until May 1918.

In a little over a month between July and August 1918, Judson won every gallantry medal available to a sergeant at that time. On 24 and 25 July he led a patrol which captured a German trench with Judson personally bombing a concentration of the enemy out of an angle where they were rallying for a counter attack. For this action he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM). Twenty two days later, on 16 August, he led a bayonet charge against a machine gun nest, capturing two guns and sixteen enemy soldiers and was awarded a Military Medal (MM). Finally at Bapaume, ten days after this act, he led a bombing party under heavy fire to capture an enemy machine gun. "He then proceeded up a sap alone, bombing three machine gun crews... Then standing on the parapet he ordered the enemy party to surrender. They instantly fired on him, but he threw a bomb and jumped down amongst them, killed two and put the rest to flight." This action won him the Victoria Cross.

After the war, Judson was commissioned and remained in the Army, retiring at the rank of Captain in 1937. He re-enlisted for home service in WW II, finally retiring as a Major. He farmed in Northland and became involved in local politics in both Auckland and Northland. Judson died in Auckland in 1972 aged 91.

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