GIRL’S GRATITUDE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 112, 10 April 1944, Page 5

GIRL’S GRATITUDE

I AIRMEN’S MASCOT RECOVERING. (R.N.Z.A.F. Official Service.) - BOUGAINVILLE. When Miss Gloria Lyons, from her sick-bed in tlie Christchurch Public Hospital, answered the advertisement from two young airmen, lonely for letters from girls back home, she little imagined that she had started a chain of events which was to transform completely the dreary prospect facing her. Stricken by tuberculosis of the spine, she was not fit to undergo the delicate bone operation which would soon have set- her oil the road to recovery, and she was resigned to a long stay of two years in hospital. How an R.N.Z.A.F. servicing unit in a forward area of the Pacific adopted her as their mascot and gave her name to a Warhawk fighter was told in an article in the newspapers of the Dominion in January. Miss Lyons has written to the senior n.c.0., on whose suggestion she became the servicing unit’s mascot. She says that she had an operation on February 15, when 5i inches of bone were taken from her leg and put in her spine. “When I answered the advertisement in the evening paper it was in my mind to bring, or do my best to bring, a little happiness in my own small way to some of the boys who are doing such a wonderful job of work overseas." Hiss Lyons says. “Since tho correspondence has grown into one big happy family, and you and the boys, have done so much for me I only wish 1 could do so very much more. So please realise how very grateful IVain. I atn pleased to sav that, the operation was successful, and I may (if Fate is kind to me) have only another six months to lio on my back. All 4 am living for now is tho end of those six months, and (lien to live all over again. I can well imagine how you, too, must feel, being away from everything which made up your life, and you, too, must be living for the day when you will be able to return to God’s Own Country and those you love. It will certainly be a great day. My very best wishes to you, and lots of luck. Your very grateful mascot, —Gloria Lyons.”