ITALIAN FRONT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 127, 31 May 1944, Page 6

ITALIAN FRONT

IMMEDIATE AWARDS

FOUR NEW ZEALANDERS

The following immediate awards to New Zealand personnel in recognition of gallant and distinguished service m Italy have been approved' by the King, states the Minister of Defence (Mr. JOneS): ~ D.sfo. Major Donald Stuart Gore Marchbanks, M.B.E. Mr. J. Marchbanks, Main Road, Heretaunga, Wellington <f>>' MILITARY CROSS. Second-Lieutenant Samuel Mitchell Frederick Martin. Mrs. R. M. Martin, 40 Grove Street, St. Kilda, Dunedin (w) ' MILITARY MEDAL. Sapper Leonard Ray Beal. Mrs. M. L. Beal, 218 Teviot Street, InvercarSapper Allan Frederick Hughes. Mrs. D. E. Hughes, 67 Pomona Street, Georgetown, Invercargill (w.). Major Marchbanks, who before the war was Chief Assistant Engineer to the Wellington Harbour Board, went overseas with the Second Echelon as a lieutenant in a railway construction and maintenance group. He was promoted to captain in August, 1941, and temporary major in November the same year. In July, 1942, he was appointed to command an army troojjs company, New Zealand Engineers. His rank of major was made substantive three months later. He has been twice mentioned in dispatches and received the M.B.E. in the New Year honours j this year. He is aged 42. ■ i Gaining his first appointment to a j commission after attending an% officer cadet training course in September, 1942, Second-Lieutenant Martin was posted to fhe Corps of New Zealand Engineers. He went overseas with a reinforcement draft a year ago. Before the war he gained outstanding success, first as a student of the Thames School of Mines, where he gained a Government Mining Scholarship entitling him to four years' university education, and later at the Otago University School of Mines, where immediately before entering the Army he completed the course in mining and metallurgy. He is aged 26. Sapper Beal, formerly a builder's apprentice in Invercargill, went overseas with an early i-einforcement draft 'in April, 1941. He is 25 years of age. Sapper Hughes left New Zealand with a reinforcement draft in December, 1942. He is 30 years old and before the war was in the employ of the New Zealand Railways at Gore.