George Medal for Boy

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 103, 2 May 1941, Page 7

George Medal for Boy

LONDON, March 27. This is the story of Boy Melville Searle Thompson, Royal Engineers. He is 17. He broke his watch, but he won the George Medal. It was a November blitz night in Southampton, and Boy Thompson and a sapper were doing look-out duty on a high building. Together they reported the progress of the raid. There was a lull, but the raiders returned with more bombs, and Boy Thompson joined a firefighting party. A fire bomb fell through the roof of a store and set a pile of material ablaze. One of Boy Thompson’s officers broke into the burning room and played a hose on the fire. He was overcome by smoke, and two men trying to take his place were both beaten back. Boy Thompson wrapped a wot towel round his face and head and went in. And he poured water on the flames until they died down. “I do not know how long I played the hose,” he said. “I broke my watch. ’ * Later ho went into another building, the roof of which was ablaze, and brought back a report. Half and hour afterward he sat on the ground and played a hose on yet another burning building, rollod over to dodge blast as a high-explosive bomb crashed in the flames, and then wont on hosing. The official Teport on Boy Thompson in the London Gazette, announcing his award of the George Medal, said: He showed remarkable initiative as well as. ‘great devotion to duty, and complete disregard for danger. An unofficial report shows that he joined the Wolf Cubs when he was seven and was a King’s Scout when he joined the Royal Engineers a month after war began.