DOUBLE WINNER OF GEORGE MEDAL

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27670, 28 May 1955, Page 8

DOUBLE WINNER OF GEORGE MEDAL

FORMER WELLINGTON MAN

The only New Zealander aboard the aircraft carrier H.M.A.S. Sydney is Lieutenant-Commander Dudley

Reid, who holds the George Medal and Bar. He is travelling in the carrier as a reserve officer doing his annual training, Lieutenant-Commander Reid, who was born in Wellington, volunteered for mine disposal work in Britain in the early part of World War IL The Germans were dropping sea magnetic and acoustic sea mines on land. For months during the blitz he was one of a flying squad that travelled all over England neutralising mines, and when the worst of the blitz was over he requested service at sea and spent the rest of the war escorting convoys in a corvette.

Lieutenant-Commander Reid is one of the two men who “saved” Fleet street. A mine had fallen on Fleet street in the blitz of April, 1941. It failed to explode, and LieutenantCommander Reid and Lieutenant Kesack were called out to deal with itThe -mine was Bft Bin in diameter and lay in the street, below the “Daily Express” office. The fuse was on the underside. After the street had been cordoned off, Lieutenant-Commander Reid worked

on the mine for several hours, until the fuse was removed. Lieutenant Kesack was later killed on a minedisposal job. Lieutenant-Commander Reid won his George Medal in Britain’s winter of 1941 when he removed a fuse from a mine which hit Cardiff’s mortuary. The mine burst watermains and flooded the streets. He broke two sets of tools on it before he removed the fuse. He kept the sign from the mortuary door. It read: “If you have any bodies, please take them to the cemetery.”