Private Alexander SHAND (3/2496)
No. 2 New Zealand Field Ambulance

Date of birth: 30th December 1886
Date of death: 12th October 1917

Killed in action aged 30
Commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial New Zealand Apse Panel 9
Alexander Shand was born in the parish of Contin in Ross-Shire at 11.56pm on the 30th of December 1886 the third son of John Shand, gamekeeper to Knockando House, and Annie (nee Stuart) of Carron. He lived in Morayshire for 20 years, being educated at Knockando Public School.

On leaving school he worked for the Travellers and Traders Engineering Company in Aberdeen and later at the Electric Works at Inverness. He moved to New Zealand in 1906 where he worked as a self-employed motor mechanic and lived at Wangerei. He was married to Florence (nee Barclay) Shand who was later living with her mother at Green Island, Dunedin New Zealand. They had a son, Ian Alexander, born at Dunedin on the 28th of November 1916.

He enlisted at Dunedin New Zealand as Private 312496 in the 16th Reinforcements, New Zealand Medical Corps on the 1st of May July 1916. At a medical examination, which was held on the 2nd February 1916, it was recorded that he was five feet eight and a quarter inches tall and that he weighed 161lbs. He had brown hair, blue eyes and a dark complexion. He embarked for overseas service at Dunedin on the 19th of August 1916 on board HMT Navna, landing at Plymouth on the 24th of October.

He embarked for France on the 11th of November 1916 and joined No. 2 New Zealand Field Ambulance at Rouen on the 16th of November. On the 28th of December 1916 he was detached for duty with the New Zealand Sanitary Section at Rouen and on the 25th of February 1917 he was detached for duty with 57th Divisional Sanitary Section, also at Rouen. From the 16th of April 1917 he served with the Deputy Director of Medical Services at Anzac Headquarters while in charge of a Clayton Machine. On 24th of April 1917 he returned to the 2nd New Zealand Field Ambulance. On the 24th of July 1917 he was attached to 5 New Zealand Machine Gun Company, returning to his unit on the 9th of August. He went on leave to England from the 10th to the 23rd of September 1917.

His brothers, Lieutenant Donald Shand, 43rd Battalion Canadian Infantry, died of wounds on the 2nd of November 1918 and Acting Lance Corporal James Shand, Corps of Military Police, Mounted Section, died on the 1st of December 1918.

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