DUNKIRK V.C. WINNER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1941, Page 6

DUNKIRK V.C. WINNER

INSTRUCTOR IN AUSTRALIA. One of the first two army V.C.’s of the present war. Major H. M. ErvineAndrews. of the East Lancashire Regiment. who gained his award at Dunkirk, has arrived in Melbourne to take up duties with the Australian Military Forces on loan from the British Army. Beyond saying that it was his men who had really won the V.C.. Major ErvineAndrews would not talk about the action in which he won it. He held about 1,900 yards of the defences in front of Dunkirk for over 10 hours in the face of intense artillery mortar and machine-gun fire, and vastly superior enemy forces. When there was danger of one of his platoons being driven in he called for volunteers to fill the gap, and from the top of a barn engaged the enemy himself with rifle and light automatic fire. He shot 17 with the rifle alone. When all his ammunition was expended he sent back the wounded and collected the remaining eight men of his company. When almost surrounded, he led them safely back to the rear, swimming or wading through water up to Ihe chin for over a mile.