GREATEST OF ALL LOVE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLII, Issue 11478, 5 March 1918, Page 2

GREATEST OF ALL LOVE.

OFFICER WHO HUGGED BOMB TO A DEATH TO SAVE OTHERS. Heroic is the story told in the London Gazette of an officer who hugged a burning bomb till it exploded and killed him rather than throw it aside and risk the lives of other men. Linked with it is the announcement that the King lias awarded the Albert Medal in Gold, “in recognition of the conspicuous gallantry and self-sacrifice of Second-Lieut. Grey de Leche Leaoii, late of the Ist Battalion of the Scots Guards. ” Lieut. Leach was examining bombs in a building in Franco on Sept, 6, 1916, when the fuse of one of them ignited. Two non-commissioned oeffiers were also at work in the building. Shouting a warning, he made for the door, carrying the bomb pressed close to his body. When he reached the door he found other men -outside, so that he could not throw the bomb away without endangering them. So he coutimied T to press the bomb to his body until it exploded, mortally wounding him. He might easily have saved'his life by throwing it away or dropping it on the ground and seeking shelter, says the officiall announcement. But either course would have endangered the lives of others, and he sacrificed his own life to save them.