Newspaper Article 1994 – The astounding life and times of Harry Jacks

One of New Zealand’s most remarkable characters

The astounding life and times of Harry Jacks

Philip Kitchin reviews the achievements and adventures of war hero, scientist, athlete and forester Harry Jacks who died recently

FOR someone with such an unremarkable name, Harry Jacks was one of New Zealand’s most remarkable characters.

War hero, scientist, athlete and forester, the Havelock North man whose ashes were spread on his Te Mata Peak property this week, led an extraordinarily rich and adventurous life in Europe, Africa, America and New Zealand.

Before World War II, as a Romanian military expert, Harry Jacks served kings and presidents of Europe. He competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and later, as Nazi forces menaced on Germany’s borders, became a diplomat undermining Hitler’s expansion toward Czechoslovakia.

A few years later he had become a New Zealander fighting with Kiwi forces in Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe.

Honoured by the Maori Battalion and top military brass from Britain, France, Poland and Yugoslavia, one of his most spectacular commando missions inspired the famous sixties movie The Guns of Navarone.

Born 86 years ago into a wealthy, aristocratic, land-owning family in Transylvania, Romania, Harry Jacks, hadn’t even reached his 10th birthday when his military career began as the German army rolled across his homeland during World War I.

His family were crushed as they tried to defend their estates of forestry and agricultural land.

Nine-year-old Harry was captured by German soldiers at the front lines where he was passing ammunition to troops in the trenches. He was imprisoned in Austria for two years before the Germans finally agreed to trade their child prisoner for a solid gold elephant figure with ruby eyes.

Home and free, at the age of 11, Harry Jacks was awarded a Romanian war medal for his efforts.

When the war ended his early education continued in Transylvania and Switzerland followed by university education in France and Britain,including Cambridge University.

He earned a master’s and doctorate in soil science and field husbandry and a doctorate in philosophy. He achieved diplomas in forestry, education and administration.

As FASCINATING as his enormously varied life was, the military was perhaps where Harry Jacks’s star shone brightest.

As a champion horse rider who represented Romania at the Berlin Olympics in equestrian events as well as discus and javelin, he was known throughout Europe as a top cavalryman. Before Romania’s popular King Carol was deposed by fascism, Harry Jacks was equestrian adviser to the king’s son, Michael.

At the same time, Poland’s leader, President Pilsudski, made him honorary colonel of his regiment and he also represented his country at the funeral of Yugoslavia’s murdered King Alexander.

In the lead-up to World War II, as Hitler began to flex his military muscle, Harry Jacks served as a military diplomat. He was in Morocco for the Riff disturbances; Spain, during the fascist army’s inroads at Guadalajara; and finally, as an artillery-position expert on the Czechoslovakian border.

Harry Jacks came to New Zealand after forming friendships with Kiwi athletes at the Berlin Olympics and when it became obvious to him that Romania was going to be over-run by Hitler’s armies.

Nine-year-old Harry was captured at the front lines passing ammunition to troops in the trenches. He was imprisoned for two years before the Germans traded their child prisoner for a solid gold elephant figure with ruby eyes

He decided to emigrate and from then on considered himself a New Zealander first and foremost, so much so that in later years, each time he arrived home from overseas, he’d kiss the ground at Auckland or Wellington airports.

Within months of arriving in New Zealand, the war started. Harry Jacks immediately volunteered and was assigned to the engineers and took part in the first Libyan campaign, before fighting in Greece and Crete.

During the fight for Crete he was seconded to the Maori Battalion as an officer because of heavy losses of Maori officers. The battalion named him Toi Te Huatahi after the great early Maori chief and navigator, Toi.

Harry Jacks stayed on Crete to work as an undercover agent. After being taken off the island on a submarine he returned to blow up the airport.

By this time, his courage, coolness, expertise in rock climbing and explosives along with ability to speak eight languages had been noticed by military special operations in Britain.

He was assigned to the Special Air Services and Special Mobilisation Unit and was sent to liaise and fight with resistance fighters in France, Syria, Kurdistan, Montenegro, Serbia and Italy.

One of those missions, blowing up a radio station high on the cliffs of Scarpanto, inspired The Guns of Navarone.

The station had been broadcasting vital details of Allied shipping. Harry Jacks and his colleagues disguised themselves as Greek fishermen, landed under cover of dark, scaled the cliffs and blew up the supposedly impregnable station.

By the time he fought for the relief of Tobruk and at El Alamein with the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force he had attained the rank of major.

FOR his outstanding military exploits he was decorated with the Croix de Guerre (France), Polish Military Medal, Yugoslavian White Eagle and King’s Medal (Britain).

Harry Jacks was captured once (he escaped after 11 days by knocking his guard out and changing uniforms), and injured four times during the war, including once when his parachute failed to open.

He returned to New Zealand after being wounded in a leg with shrapnel. After being discharged from hospital he became chief instructor at the Army School in Trentham.

The post-war years saw Harry Jacks working for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research as a plant pathologist – a field in which he published more than 100 scientific papers on.

He became the department’s senior plant pathologist, senior lecturer in soil science at Massey University and, toward the end of his working life, coordinator of forest development research for the northern part of the South Island.

Harry Jacks retired to land he bought on the slopes of Havelock North’s dramatic Te Mata Peak. He named the property Toi Te Huatahi.

He continued, however, to work as a forestry consultant to Fletcher Challenge, visiting Borneo, Canada and Chile.

During a trip to Canada, as a 70-year-old, Harry Jacks attended the famous Calgary Stampede rodeo. One of the horses was said to be so wild that no one could stay on it . . . inside his home today there’s a large Western saddle . . . a rodeo prize won by the former Romanian cavalry officer turned New Zealand war hero and scientist.

Harry Jacks died peacefully in his sleep on August 17.

Photo caption – HARRY JACKS . . . a man who wore many hats in his extraordinarily rich and adventurous life in Europe, Africa, America and New Zealand