WOUNDED MAN’S FORTITUDE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLII, Issue 11470, 23 February 1918, Page 5

WOUNDED MAN’S FORTITUDE.

SEVEN WEEKS IN SHELL HOLE. London, Feb. 10. An amazing story is told of the endurance of Private J. Taylor, formerly a factory worker at Holloway, who participated in an attack on the Hindonhurg line with his comrades of a London regiment last June. They encountered a terrific fire, and men dropped like ninepins. A bullet fractured Taylor’s thigh, and lie feigned death. With another wounded soldier he lived in a shellhole unobserved for seven weeks behind the German lines.. His companion crawled out at night and searched corpses of soldiers for “iron rations.” The pair lived solely on bully beef and rain water, which they collected in outspread water-proof sheets. Taylor’s companion did not return one night, having been taken prisoner. Faced with imminent starvation, Taylor determined on a supreme effort to reach the British lines. He crawled painfully under cover of the blackness of night for a distance of 900yds. He had an anxious moment when passing the German front lino. He flung himself across an unoccupied spot, and arrived, naked and streaming ' with blood, at the British ( entanglements, where patrols lent him assistance. Taylor has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.