GALLANTRY REWARDED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 71, 21 February 1940, Page 10

GALLANTRY REWARDED.

■NEAV ZEALANDER DECORATED. Per Press Association. AYELLINGTON, Feb. 20. For “gallantry and devotion to duty,” Corporal C. B. G. Knight, of Picton, has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. He is the first airman or n.c.o. of the Boyal New Zealand Air Force to have received the decoration, although other New Zealanders serving with the Royal Air Force have won awards. Corporal Knight is the son of Mrs K. E. Knight, of Otago Street, Picton, and is 27 vears of age. He was formerly a corporal in the Nelson-Alarlborough Mounted Rifles, transferring to the Royal New Zealand Air Force in 1937. Previously he was employed with the Post and Telegraph Department at Seddon. In February, 1939, Corporal Knight was sent to the United Kingdom as a wireless operator for service with the Vickers-AYellington bombers which were to have been flown to New Zealand. Then, together with other personnel of the Royal New Zealand Air Force who were in Britain, he was made available to the Air Ministry for employment with the Royal Air Force, with which some hundreds of New Zealanders were already serving. No details are available regarding the circumstances under which Corporal Knight won the D.F.AL. other than the official statement “for gallantry and devotion to duty.”