HONOURED AS HERO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25303, 13 August 1943, Page 6

HONOURED AS HERO

YOUTH’S FRAUD ON TOWN

(Air Mail) SYDNEY, July 30. A youth who escaped from a detention home in Sydney and stole a military uniform was publicly honoured in his home town, Junee, western New South Wales, before the fraud was discovered. He was serving a sentence for a criminal offence at the time of his escape. Stealing A.I.F. shorts and shirt from a soldier who had hung them out to dry. the youth also took his identification disc, chewing it till the details were too blurred to be recognisable. Wearing the uniform, the youth, who was subject to fits, collapsed in a Sydney street and was taken to a military hospital, treated, and discharged. In a new uniform which had been given him, he took another fit while in the train en route to Junee. Removed to an air force hospital by an ambulance, which travelled 30 miles to pick him up, he eventually arrived in Junee. There he was given a presentation by a local patriotic committee. Shortly afterwards he was arrested at a local dance hall, and was returned to the detention home from which he had secaped. Military authorities doubted that it would be possible for a man to be treated and discharged at a military hospital without the fraud being detected, but Junee citizens vouch for the accuracy of the story.