APPEAL AGAINST SERVICE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 38, 14 February 1945, Page 6

APPEAL AGAINST SERVICE

SURVIVOR FROM AWATEA

On the grounds that he was suffering from disabilities resulting from his harrowing experiences when the Union Steam Ship Company's liner Awatea was attacked and sunk by dive-bombers of? the Tunisian coast in November, 1942, Andrew Thompson, a single man aged 30, appealed against military service at a sitting of the No. 1 Armed Forces Appeal Board yesterday afternoon. On behalf of Thompson, Mr. Porritt said the appellant joined the crew of the Awatea shortly after the outbreak of war. The appellant served in an Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun crew when the vessel was attacked after landing troops, and he and another man were the only two gunners who survived the attack. In evidence the appellant said that as doctors had stated he was unfit to go back to sea, he had obtained work ashore. He had been boarded twice, and considered it unjust that the Army authorities should continue to classify him grade 1 in spite of his experiences and the evidence of his own doctors. '•. The appeal was dismissed, but the board recommended that Thompson be allowed another medical examination.