HERO MEDAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20897, 29 November 1937, Page 9

HERO MEDAL

AWARDED TO SCHOOLBOY IN CHINA United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received November 28, 7.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, November 27. The American Humane Association annourices the award of the Hero Medal to Valentine Holdosl, a Russianborn schoolboy in China, but how to locate and get the medal to him is a problem. The Association is unable even to learn his fate from its own Shanghai branch, and it does not know whether the boy is yet alive. Although the Association appealed to the Chinese Consul, who has referred the matter to the American Consulate. This is due to the partial Japanese occupation of the International Settlement. The Association said the boy, after fleeing: from his home, situated in the Shanghai area undergoing shelling, realised that his pets—a chicken, two dogs and two canaries—were left with a single day’s food. Flailing to obtain a permit to enter the zone, the boy slipped into the sectors alternately between the targets of Japanese shells and Chinese snipers, and rescued the pets unharmed. He later reached the Whangpoo wharf, whence the police escorted him to the temporary headquarters of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.