AIR RAID HEROES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23879, 1 February 1941, Page 10

AIR RAID HEROES

GASOMETER FIRE QUENCHED STOKER'S DANGEROUS SEAT LONDON, Jan. '-5 Mr. Timothy Higgins, a stoker, sealed a hole in a gasometer caused bv a fire-bomb by covering it with clay and sitting on it. If the Haines had not been extinguished, lie would have been blown up. . . . Mr. Higgins is mentioned m tne latest awards to oivilian heroes, consisting of a George Cross, three M.B.E.'s. 40 George Medals, and 21 Empire Gallantry Medals. They include dockers, railwaymen, casworkcrs, and police, who worked in British ports through heavy raids ol fire-bombs and high-explosives. Mr. Norman Tunua, shunter, ol Birkenhead, climbed on to a waggon containing munitions and remo\ ed a fire-bomb that was wedged between two high explosives He has been aw aided the George Cross. When fire threatened a naval magazine Police-Inspector Michael McHugh and' five other policemen rushed into tho flames and removed tho ammunition. Tliev prevented an explosion which would have destroyed blocks or near bv tenements. Mr Harold Savage, a yard master, crawled under a burning waggon laden with explosives, and played a hose 011 the flames. Mr. Albert Edward Page, a gasworker, saw four gasometers on lire. Ho rushed into the (lames without asbestos clothing and turned off the gas.