USED HIS TEETH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21559, 23 January 1940, Page 3

USED HIS TEETH

“AN OLD SOLDIER TRICK” When the liner At.henia was hit by a torpedo, a Mr Bowen, of Vancouver, who was a sergeant-major in the Great War, but is now a missionary in Western Canada, did not bother about himself and did not even trouble to look for a lifebelt. Instead, he set about doing all he could to help those around him, and his crowning act was to rescue a ten-year-old boy by lowering himself into a lifeboat with the child in his arms while holding to the rope himself mainly by his teeth. When Mr Bowen arrived back home in Vancouver he found that the tale of his heroism had been told by other survivors of the wreck, but it was very reluctantly that he told the tale himself. "The youngster’s father was looking after the mother, who is an invalid. Someone had to take him down, so I volunteered. I remembered reading about children using their teeth to come down ropes, so I tried it. I picked up the child and down we went/’ Mr Bowen rubbed his jaw. and then as though to explain the deed, he said. “Well, i just happened to be an old soldier." Now to Vancouver (and to us) he just happens to be an old hero!