MILITARY MEDALS WON

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24092, 30 October 1943, Page 4

MILITARY MEDALS WON

TWO NEW ZEALANDERS AT TAKROUNA (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service) ■ CAIRO, October 5. The award of two Military Medals for gallantry during the capture by the New Zealanders of Takrouna on the night of April 19 are announced. They go to Sergeant L. N. Parris and Private A. T. Luxford. Sergeant Parris was- platoon sergeant of one of the two leading platoons which, after reaching the company’s objective, had to advance in the face of fierce opposition to clean out an enemy strongpdint dominating their front and flank. After hand-to-harid fighting against strongly entrenched Germans the ridge was taken, but there were only three men left capable of fighting. Two platoon officers had been killed and Sergeant Parris, who was wounded, tried, to establish contact with the flanking units. He. collected alii available Bren magazines and set up a machine-gun post which, with the addition of the fire of his own tommy-gun, successfully held at bay a vastly superior enemy force. When the enemy counter-attacked again, Sergeant Parris had to retire, taking with him his remaining men; “The aggressive spirit of this noncommissioned officer has been evident every-time he has been in action,” the citation says. . In the same action Private Luxford’s section commander was wounded and Private Luxford took over and led the section in attack. The section captured a 50~milliraetre anti-tank gun, two machine-gun nests, and one mortar post. When the remainder of his section were wounded, Private Luxford went on alone and, although later 1 severely wounded, used up all his ammunition. He, then crawled back to report. .“The success of this action was undoubtedly due to his leadership and courage,” says the citation. “Hife conduct was consistent with that on all other occasions on which he has been in action,”