SABOTAGE COUP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26215, 27 July 1946, Page 6

SABOTAGE COUP

ENEMY MACHINERY DAMAGED DUNEDIN AIRMAN’S AWARD The announcement was made recently that the award of M.B.E. had been made to Warrant Officer T. T. S. Larsen, R.N Z.A.F. The citation reads as follows: “ Warrant Officer Larsen’s aircraft crashed near Drachten in June. 1941. He and other uninjured members of the crew dragged the injured clear and went for assistance. They noticed German soldiers approaching the aircraft, and they hid until dark. At midnight they entered Drachten. where the police arrested them for breaking the curfew. Warrant Officer Larsen made his first attempt to escape from Lansdorf in 1942 by changing his identity, and joining a working party accommodated at Tarnowitz. He and another man made a tunnel from the barracks, but the camp was moved before it could be used.

“In June, 1944, he again changed his identity, and with a companion escaped from a working party in a munitions factory, having first thrown a chain on a revolving belt, thus severely damaging certain machinery. They made for Belgrade, but were arrested five days later through lack of papers. “Warrant Officer Larsen was tried for sabotage and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to 10 years’ penal servitude with hard labour. From September, 1944, to February. 1945, he was engaged in bomb disposal at Halle, and later moved to Dresden, where he was one of 11 survivors of a bombed prison. Warrant Officer Larsen escaped from the ruins, but was recaptured and put in another prison, where he developed pneumonia. He was released in 1945 ’’