BRAVE U.S. SERGEANT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 253, 25 October 1943, Page 4

BRAVE U.S. SERGEANT

ENEMY PATROL, ROUTED (0.C.) SOUTH PACIFIC BASE, Oct 14. One of the most interesting stories to come from New Georsil concerns a United States infantry sergeant named Burgess, who volunteered to man a machine-gun outpost protecting a beach-head supply dump A rather large patrol, estimated at 100 Japanese, penetrated the front lines at night. One of the patrol even probed with his bayonet the hole in which the sergeant had been forced to take cover barelv missing him. * As soon as the Japanese force had retired far enough, Burgess got the machine-gun-into action, killing 20 of the raiders and routing the remainder. But in the course of the action Burgess was isolated a«d with his gun out of order, he was forced to circle wide, after having lost contact with a Marine who was his partner. His lone jungle trip in order to evade the retiring Japanese lasted four. days. He haT been posted missing in action before he returned to his own lines to relate his experiences. All the time he had known where ■SttpKoJ 3 * 5 ' but * each time he had rnn^££ d i to get throu £* he had run into large enemy parties, and tn J£,£!f + se P arate _ occasions he had &£ W M dTs a C o b v y er a ands tokee ' p