MEDAL AWARDED

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24103, 23 October 1941, Page 3

MEDAL AWARDED

RANG IT AXE STEWARDESS SPLENDID WAR RECORD FOUR SONS IN THE FORCES To have four sons in the war, one of whom has given his lite, to have lost her husband just after the last war, and to have been wounded herself by enemy action, is the experience oi Mrs. Elizabeth Plumb, a stewardess on the Rangitarie, when if was sunk by a raider, who according to a United Press Association cablegram from London, has been awarded , the British Empire Medal. Mrs. Plumb guided passengers from their cabins to the boat stations and tended them in the liteboat. Although wounded herself, site refused attention when taken aboard the raider until all the other wounded had been treated. Mrs. Plumb is now living in Auckland with friends, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Barlow, of Dominion Road, who nursed her back to health, and have oflered her hospitality for the duration of the war. In the Rangitane she occupied a cabin with Mrs. Cost-el 10, another stewardess, who was killed. Tribute to Captain Upton Mrs. Plumb was wounded in the side by a shell splinter at .'5.110 a.m., and ii was not until noon of that day that she was operated upon in the Gorman raider by the ship's surgeon and one ol the oflieers. She was well treated by the Germans, whom she found courteous and kind. Mrs. Plumb, however, pays her greatest tribute to Captain Upton, of the Uangitane, who, she said, was untiring in his efforts to see to the comfort and safety of the prisoners from the time the Uangitane was attacked until the people eventually arrived in Australia. Mrs. Plumb is an English woman, whose husband served tor 2(> yea re in tho British Army, and was in the first expeditionary force to go into action in the Great War. He was invalided

homo suffering I'rom the effects of gas, and before peace was signed and the day before he was to take his discharge on pension, he was knocked down and killed in London by a taxi. A tragic feature was that he was posting his discharge papers when the fatality centred. Home in London Mrs. Plumb was lett with her family oi four .sous, one ot whom, a pilotofficer m th«? Royal Air I'oree, was killed in action iii Juno of last year. Another of her sons in the Royal Air Force, Kdward, is a wireless operator and air gunner stationed in Irak, while a third. Sergeant James Plumb, is at present at Waiouru military camp, and expects later to go overseas. Mr. Robert Plumb was invalided out of the arntv in Holland betore the outbreak of the present war. and is now engaged as an examiner of guns in munition works. Mrs. Plumb's home i- in south-east London and it is so far still undamaged, although in a vulnerable area. In August of last year she spent a month in London "between trips ' and experienced some fit the worst ol the air raids, spending every night ot the entire month iu the Anderson shelter of the next door house. Nine of the l-"> years she ha- been at sea were spent in the Rangitane and the other six in ihe Ruahine. Mr-. Plumb is remaining in Auckland indefinitely.