WILL TO WALK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 80, 2 October 1944, Page 3

WILL TO WALK

PARALYSED SOLDIER

CONFOUNDING THE DOCTORS O.C. SYDNEY, September 27. With the aid of walking irons, a corset to support his paralysed abdomen, springs to lift his feet, and an unconquerable will, Private;: John ("Bluey") Kirkwood, A.1.F., has confounded doctors, who said two years ago that he would % never walk "again. Before a small, 'tense audience in a Sydney military hospital, Kirkwood hobbled, lurched, and tottered alone from one end of a ward to the other. His 81-year-old father saw him coming, and. almost dpllapsed. His 76-year-old mother cried out in alarm, and hid behind" her husband, fearing her son would fall. Then she sat down and cried, and Digger patients in adjoining beds cried too. Kirkwood was wounded at- El Alamein in July, 1942. He was shot three times by a sniper, one bullet going through his spine and two through his stomach. When a mate bent to pick him up a mortar shell explode beside him, inflicting terrible injuries on Kirk wood's stomach. "Fm sorry I can't carry you," his mate said. "Half my foot has been blown off.'* The platoon surrendered. The Germans' left Kirkwood where he was lying, after having unscrewed his water-bottle and placed it beside him; '

For five months he was dangerously ill in Middle East hospital... His weight fell to four stone. When he got back to Australia, he was paralysed from the waist down, and doctors' thought it a kindness to tell him to give up hoping he would walk again. They ■ encouraged him to complete arrangements for a wheel-chair powered with a motor capable of travelling at six miles an hour and doing 150 miles to thef gallon. It was almost completed when Kirkwood made up his mind to Walk again. "I think it was temper that really saved met" Kirkwood said. I used .to get furious when I tried to walk around,my bed and failed. I determined it wasn't going to beat me. I am still only walking on air, mind you. I can't feel a thing iii my legs. I walk from my thighs, like a goose-stepping Nazi." , .•

The Seventh Canadian Victory Loan Campaign opens _on .Octobr-,- 23 with an objective of 1,300,000,000 dollars which exceeds, the Sixth Victory Loan objective by" 100,000,000 dollars.