STORY OF THE WAR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21242, 24 January 1931, Page 16

STORY OF THE WAR.

SAVED FROM GAS, ATTACK. FRITZ FINDS BRITISH HERO. After a gas attack which resulted in the capture of,a German trench in France an English soldier saved the life of a wounded German by giving him a gas mask and fitting it,on his face. :The two men met again recently in Havertonhill-on-Tees, near Stockton. An English workman was passing through the shipyard of the Furness Shipbuilding Company, where preparations were being made for a newly-built ship, the Bedford, manned by Germans, to leave on a maiden trip. One of the German sailors ran toward the Englishman, lifted him off his feet, hugged and kissed him, and danced around .him, entirely regardless, of the amazement of other workmen. Before the ship left they made an arrangement to meek again when she is next in port. The Englishman was a stranger to the other workmen, and he did not disclose his name or in what part of the battlefield the incident occurred. The German told part of the story to a group of onlookers,, one of whom'was James Crinson. a plater. He said that the tears were streaming down the man’s face as he told how his life was saved when he was taken prisoner. The German said he had searched every English port he had visited ever since the war in the hope of seeing his benefactor again. Ho was lying helpless when the Englishman foitnd him and saved his life. . Mr Crinson added that just before the strange meeting he.had been talking with friends about coinsidences in life; in fact, the talk was interrupted by the German’s frantic rush to greet the man to whom he owed his life.