N.Z. SOLDIER’S HEROISM

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 May 1945, Page 6

N.Z. SOLDIER’S HEROISM

TWO TANKS ATTACKED

[Official War Correspondent, N’.Z.E.F.J

DIVISIONAL H’QRS., May 7. Two German Panther tanks, formidable fighting machines, fell to one New Zealand infantryman, Lance-Corporal J. L. Tucker, ol Whangarei. during our night advance beyond the Sillaro River. Not satisfied with this, Lance-Coi pot al Tucker, who belonged to the 27th Battalion, was preparing to atlacK a third Panther when lie fell dead, shot through the heart by a machinegun bullet. . , ... Lance-Corporal Tucker s attacks were made with a Plat gun, the infantryman’s anti-tank weapon, and from close range. Troops had cros - ed the river stop-bank from which the advance began, and had been threading their way for some distance. across fields when they reached a road, about which three tanks were grouped. Taking a Plat gun, Lance-Corporal Tucker moved m close, and fired. He scored a hit on the first tank, and, reloading the gun, soon dispatched the second. As he was about to attack the third he must have been seen by a German machine-gunner, either in the tank or a nearby position, and this courageous exploit ended in his death. Lance-Corporal Tucker had been mentioned in dispatches for good work in the Cassino battle.