2nd Lieutenant Victor Adolph

Second Lieutenant Victor Emiel Adolph was a section commander in No 16 (New Zealand) Company, Imperial Camel Corps. He was fatally wounded during the battle for Hill 3039, one of the key actions of the British raid on Amman in March 1918. In the aftermath of the raid Adolph was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his courage and leadership. He was 23 years old.

Born at Waihou, Waikato, Adolph was working at Kaipara Flats in Northland when the war broke out. He enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) as a trooper in the Auckland Mounted Rifles Regiment in 1914 and served at Gallipoli in 1915. In 1916 he was promoted from the ranks to 2nd lieutenant and was transferred to the Imperial Camel Corps shortly thereafter.

In the portrait above Adolph is wearing the cap and collar badges of the 3rd (Auckland) Mounted Rifles Regiment, a Territorial Force (TF) unit. The wearing of TF regimental badges was standard practice across the mounted rifles regiments of the NZEF, none of which had specific badges of their own. This was part of a deliberate attempt to maintain a linkage between the 'temporary' wartime mounted rifles regiments raised for the NZEF and their 'permanent' TF counterparts back in New Zealand.