HONOUR WELL EARNED

Evening Star, Issue 25067, 7 January 1944, Page 6

HONOUR WELL EARNED

LIEUTENANT BOOTH'S BRAVERY •-N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, January 0. In the opinion of the men of his platoon, no award for bravery in the Solomons engagement was more worthily earned than that' -made to Lieutenant Booth. He received the Military Cross for his achievements on Mono Island during its occupation in October and November. He led a platoon which'in the late forenoon of October 27 attacked and annihilated enemy mountain guns and mortar posts well outside the New Zealand perimeter. Later, on tho same day, he took a party of engineers to the guns to supervise their destruction, and on the following day covered and recovered the same ground several times, despite the fact that the Japanese wore still known to be iu the vicinity and might at any time have launched « strong counter-attack. "Our officer did a grand job of work," said two men of the platoon who were wounded during the morning engagement. "He split the platoon after wo had the first gun out of action, left a small party behind, and moved forward up a difficult ridge to where a mortar post had been observed. In spite of the fact that the ground we had to cover was in fair view of tho enemy. Lieutenant Booth led us round a small abutment and charged the enemy position. He was first in with grenades and tommy-gun bursts, and we would have been lost without his leadership."

Strangely enough, Lieutenant Booth's patrols were themselves " annihilated." according to a scribbled message written by a Japanese who was later killed. This soldier recorded that three New Zealand patrols, each of five men, had been wiped out on their way up the ridge, but whether he was suffering from hallucinations or was counting the numbers of his own casualties, the fact remains that tho New Zealanders went iu, did ,the job, came out again, and were almost intact. The Japanese, who wrote the note on a slip of dirty paper,, unconsciously raised a hearty laugh among the men who later read their own obituary notice. Lieutenant Booth's platoon gathered in a good store of booty from this raid—mountain guns, rifles, machine guns, a radio set, clothing, blankets,■ anti-gas gear, ammunition, rations, and grenades. In the ensuing days this same band of men changed its locality,and in the Malsi and Soanutalu areas on the east and north coasts of Mono- patrolled deeply into the island's interior. , it made few contacts, but was able later to report that the area was reasonably clear of Japanese. .

Lieutenant Booth, fresh from his experiences in the north, is now instructing at a jungle training school for New Zealanders behind the front lines.