Lile, Pat

Pat Norman Lile was born on 22 June 1918, the youngest son of baker Adam Lile (1885-1954) and Ida Alberta Lile (nee Fleet) (1887-1952).

Pat attended Fitzroy School then St Patrick’s College in Silverstream. Once back in New Plymouth, he played for the Old Boys’ Rugby Football Club, was a member of New Plymouth Golf Club and also involved in surf lifesaving.

Pat was working as a barman at the State Hotel on the corner of Devon and Gover Streets, operated by his parents since 1926 when it was called the Red House Hotel, when the Second World War broke out. He volunteered on 13 September 1939 – one of the first men from Taranaki to do so – and was sent to Trentham Army Camp on 3 October, following a farewell party thrown by his fellow golf club members.

Pat was initially sent to Egypt with the 27th Machine Gun Battalion where he and a group of fellow Gunners, along with their second in command Major Percy Wright, sent a funny Christmas card to the editor and staff of the Taranaki Daily News in December 1940.

But the laughs were short-lived as Pat was taken prisoner in Greece on Good Friday, 11 April 1941. His parents were informed of his capture (effected “through a Hun ruse” according to Major Wright) via a telegram from the Minister of Defence on 22 April but they had to wait months for word from Pat himself, who was eventually able to send an official card from Stalag XVIII-D in what was then Yugoslavia (now Slovenia) letting them know that he was “in good health”. It was dated 18 June but did not reach them until September. A proper letter arrived in December 1941, in which Pat assured his mother he was being treated well and being given 10 cigarettes every two days, but requesting warm clothes and sweets (along with more smokes) in his next care package. Prisoners were required to work most days, some on nearby farms, others in construction, but according to another letter sent in September 1942 Pat had been assigned to work in a local school. He described being given three care parcels for Easter, along with 50 cigarettes and a bottle of beer, and declared that he had “made short work of [the] malt and codliver oil sent by the English Red Cross”.

Pat’s parents were members of the New Plymouth branch of the Prisoner of War Relations Association, donating £20 during a fundraising campaign for POW welfare in October 1942, the equivalent of more than $2000 in today’s money. They were also involved in the 27^th Machine Gun Club, for relatives of those in the battalion, and Pat’s mother was on the committee of the women’s section of the New Plymouth Returned Services Association or RSA – members wrote letters to the families of soldiers killed, wounded, taken prisoner or missing, raised funds through events like card evenings and visited the wives of men serving overseas, assisting them to secure pensions and accommodation.

Pat was finally liberated – British records indicate he had been held in a different camp, Stalag 18A in Austria, so must have been moved at some point – and was safely back in the UK by May 1945. In June he visited Scotland with two other Kiwi soldiers, part of their recuperation following years of captivity, and was taken to various sports matches and dances by a Scottish couple who wrote to Pat’s parents afterwards to let them know that their son was fit and well “with not a scrap of bitterness towards the Germans”.

Pat finally returned to New Zealand on the ship Dominion Monarch in late September 1945, along with 61 other Taranaki men. They docked in Wellington and were transported to Taranaki in the early hours of 1 October by train, stopping at stations along the route to be greeted by friends and family. Pat stepped onto the platform in New Plymouth at 5am to find a crowd of 100 well-wishers gathered to meet him and the other men. Happily, he was playing golf again by the end of that month, taking part in a Digger-Kiwi tournament at Ngamotu Links on Sunday 28 October.

Pat’s older brother Addie Bernard Lile (1914-1985) also fought in the Second World War. He too was working at the State Hotel when he was called up and served in New Caledonia as a Private in the Infantry Brigade of the Second NZEF. Both brothers were awarded the War Medal 1939-1945 and the New Zealand Service War Medal. Addie took over the hotel when Adam Lile died.

Pat married Iris Margaret Hopcroft (1918-1997) on 17 April 1947 and the couple had three children: John, Mary and Anne. He remained in the hospitality business, living in and running the State Hotel after his brother retired in 1961.

Pat Lile died in New Plymouth on 12 August 2004 at the age of 86 and his ashes are buried at Awanui Cemetery.