After the outbreak of war in 1914 Mr. W. Dervan received a letter from Billy Curran, an ex Marist Old Boys rugby, and Newton rugby league player, which stated that Waddell along with Lance Todd and P Thomas had joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Indeed, Waddell had joined the war effort and was part of a group of 200 New Zealanders who volunteered in London. He was listed as being from Waipu, though this is more likely a misspelling of Waiapu where the Waiapu Cathedral stands. They were to join the force of 8000 who had been sent from New Zealand and had gone into camp at Bulford, on Salisbury Plain in late November, 1914. He went to Egypt with the New Zealand Forces and was wounded at Gallipoli. Waddell got through the landing safely but weeks later a high explosive shell landed near him and the concussion “left him senseless and with hearing partially gone”. He recovered somewhat and managed to stay on the peninsula for another four months before “giddiness and deafness caused by the explosion had their effect, and he was shipped off on the Acquitania to hospital in England”. He was also suffering from dysentery. In May 1916 he was invalided home from England. Later in the year he was in Auckland and described himself as quite deaf in one ear, and that he suffers occasional attacks of giddiness.
