ORIGINAL GRAVE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26541, 16 August 1947, Page 3

ORIGINAL GRAVE

GREAT WAR HERO CROSS MADE BY OTAGO MEN News that the grave of Dick Travis is clean and tidy was received with particular interest by two Dunedin returned men of the First World Wai, for it was they who helped to make the cross that originally stood above the grave at Gouin. The two men are Messrs George Booth and Charles Mullins, both of whom are in the building trade in Dunedin. It was actually Mr Booth who painted the inscription on the simple wooden cross. When Sergeant R. C. Travis was killed at Rossignal Wood, his comrades carried his body beyond the shell fire area to the French village of Couin. It was there that his companions made the cross, fashioning it from French beech, a tree that grows well in that part of France. Booth painted the inscription on the cross. After the name he wrote the decorations already won by Travis the D.C.M., M.M. and the Belgian Croix de Guerre—but he left a small space after the name. He was confident that Travis would -be awarded the V.C. Not long after, news came through that the New Zealander had been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Booth rode 25 miles on a bicycle from his billet to Couin to complete the job ’he had begfin. In the space he had left he painted in the two significant letters —V.C.