Jack Aimers

Jack Aimers was lost at sea out-side Tobruk on December 5, 1941. He enlisted at the beginning of the war, served as a private at Fort Dorset, and after receiving his commission, left New Zealand as a Lieutenant in the Anti-Aircraft (Regiment. Victoria College has lost one of her ablest students. His academic record was excellent, and the College knows his ability as an administrator, his conviction as a debater, his friendliness and cheerfulness. We pay tribute to his achievements, his degree, his Plunket Medal, his Bledisloe Medal, his leadership of the N.Z.U. Debating team in Australia in 1939. We pay grateful tribute to his service to the students, the Executive, the Building Fund, the N.Z. University Students' Association, the constitution of the Drinking Horn contest, the Extrav. as actor, producer, author.

The war interrupted a brilliant career of service to ideals, and his bitter opposition to Fascism over several years has reached its climax. His political understanding alone led him to drop everything, and now the end is still to be attained. In his last letter to me he explained his "charter."

"If we can win the war quickly we can then endeavour to win the peace. (I've got a mental note of a number of arch- b——s who should be shot before they can gather round a conference table). All I want now is the right to live a decent life and to be left in peace to do just what I like. I haven't become an anarchist, but I don't want to be 'mooked about wif.'"

Jack would hate [unclear: heroics] over his death, but we must all feel that he has left us with a job to do when the war is over which he could so ably have led himself.

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