MILITARY CROSS FOR NEW ZEALAND AIRMAN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 16, 13 October 1917, Page 7

MILITARY CROSS FOR NEW ZEALAND AIRMAN

GALLANT ATTACK ON A ZEPPELIN London, October 11.

• The Military Cross has been awarded to Lieutenant W. W. Cook, of the New Zealand Forces and the Flying Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and skill in an . attack on a Zeppelin. He ascended in a i strong wind and thick mist, amid low clouds, and eventually gave up the attack when sixty miles at sea. The return journey was hazardous, blut Hie landed safely after being five and a half hours in the air. [Flight-Lieutenant W. W. Cook is a son of Mr. W. Cook, of Palmerslon North. He graduated from the Aviation School at Kohemarama, Auckland, with high honours as an airman, and left New Zealand with the Twenty-first Reinforcements in January last to join the Royal Flying Corps. Recent letters indicated that ho is at present detailed for coast defence work, or, as he himself expressed it, "Zepp. strafing." A great chum of his, Lieutenant A. W. Gordon, who graduated at Kohemarama, and left with the same reinforcements, achieved notoriety as a daring flier, and was rapidly promoted. He was, unhappily, killed in action recently.] .