WHITE FEATHER FOR TOBRUK HERO

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22201, 19 February 1942, Page 7

WHITE FEATHER FOR TOBRUK HERO

EYE GIVEN TO WOMEN Lieut. Jack Leslie Perry, Military Cross, minus an eye blown out In Syria, wounded in four places at Tobruk, fought in Greece and Creta and now being treated at Concord Military Hospital, was recently given a white feather in Sydney. To the unknown woman who handed it to him, he said nothing. He just dropped a glass eye from its socket into his hand, and the woman reeled. She recovered sufficiently to make a hurried exit from the lounge of a city hotel where the Incident took place. And with her went the feather. She declined his invitation to accept his left eye as a gift. This decorated hero of Tobruk was waiting for his wife. He had a glass of beer to his lips when the woman suddenly appeared and said, “Here, handing him the symbol of cowardice from her handbag. "You could have knocked me down with that feather, but I was sitting at the time.” said the young Military Cross recipient. This is the official citation which earned the Military Cross for Lieut. Perry:— “For conspicous gallantry and devotion to duty. This officer was detained with his platoon of pioneers to assist in an attack on Tobruk on January 21, 1941. While waiting near the enemy wire the party came under heavy shellfire and sustained numerous casualties. Lieut. Perry led the rest of the party forward under fire and personally supervised the placing of the explosives under the enemy wire, thus enabling entry of the waiting infantry. He displayed in th** action leadership above the ordinary and outstanding devotion to duty which was a conspicuous example to his men.” What Lieut. Perry cannot make out is why this foman should pick on a khaki-clad man for her white feather act. “There were plenty of men in civilian clothes around,” he said. Lieut. Perry is still In the Army training other men.