COULDN’T “STICK IT”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 January 1944, Page 4

COULDN’T “STICK IT”

DESERTER’S LONG TRIP TUNISIA TO AUCKLAND Wellington, This Day. The story ol a desertion which began in Auckland was told at the district court-martial at Trentham on Saturday of Private Ira Lewis, 2nd N.Z.E.F. The period of desertion was approximately nine months. Sentence will be announced after its confirmation and promulgation. Colonel L. W Andrew. V.C., D. 5.0., was president of the court. The facts were that accused found hi way from the Middle East to Australia, where he was placed aboard a ship for New Zealand. On her arrival he again went missing and was arrested wearing civilian clothes. Accused pleaded guilty A statement by him set out that he left New Zealand in September, 1941, with the Seventh Reinforcements, serving in the 21st Battalion till he deserted. He had strong personal reasons for this action whiter he could not discuss. He left the unit at Wadi Akarit and got to Tripoli by lifts on service lorries. He stayed there awhile and finally reached Alexandria with Italian prisoners, making his way aboard a ship about to depart with soldiers on leave. Some Australians aboard gave him an Australian Air Force uniform. At Fremantle he gave misleading replies to an R.A.A.F. officer and was handed over to the civil police. En route to Sydney he left the train at Adelaide and finally surrendered to a New Zealand officer in Sydney. He went to Auckland, where he gave himself up. Lieutenant D. F. Stuart, defending officer, asked the Court to consider the effect on accused of the loss of his parents at an early age. Accused served in Fiji and then, for a long period, in the Middle East. He was wounded in action, and after leaving hospital served with his unit till practically*The en£l of ihe Tunisian campaign. After rejoining his unit he had left unable to "stick it.”