WAR ITEMS

Grey River Argus, 24 July 1942, Page 5

WAR ITEMS

N.Z. MEN DECORATED. BY DUKE OF GLOUCESTER IN THE DESERT. (Official N.Z.E.F. War Correspondent.) ALAEMEIN, July 20. Two New Zealand N.C.O.’s —one decorated for gallantry in Crete and the other foi’ bravery in the first Libyan campaign—were among eight British officers and men who received their awards from the Duke of Gloucester in the Western Desert on Sunday afternoon. They vzere Sergeants Thomas Gill, British Empire Medal (Wellington), and Mervin Curtis (Auckland). The Duke was accompanied by General Auchinleck. He pinned the ribbons on the men, who stood in line on a small hill front of the Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters. Both the Duke and General Auchinleck were particularly interested in the story of Sergeant Gill, A.S.C., N.C.0., who served through every phase of the Desert campaign. Sergeant Gill received his decoration for gallantry in clearing a path for his trucks through thermos bombs dropped by Italians in the New Zealanders’ first Libyan campaign. In the campaign last winter he left Benghazi when it was surrounded, and made a ten day march across three hundred miles of desert to Tobruk.

Sergeant Curtis, who is now serving w'th an ack-ack regiment, saved the life of a' Fleet air arm pilot, whom he' dragged from a plane when it was shot down in front of his ma-chine-gun post just before the invasion of Crete.