UNIQUE BROADCAST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 7, 10 January 1944, Page 4

UNIQUE BROADCAST

U.S. SERVICEMAN FLOWN TO NEW CALEDONIA (P.A.) Auckland, Jan. 9. A badly-wounded American soldier, Private (First Class) Charles E. Oats, was flown from New Zealand to NewCaledonia to be featured in a Christmas Day broadcast from Noumea to the United States. Private Oats had had 31 blood plasma transfusions in the last year, the number being a record for the 39th General Hospital in New Zealand, where he is a patient, and perhaps a record for one person anywhere. Private Oats was wounded at Guadalcanar on January 16 of last year, when a Japanese shell killed his friends. It was necessary to amputate an arm and a leg, and for some months he was in an unfavourable condition and did not want to live. However, he found that others were in the same plight and slowly changed his attitude. To-day he has a reputation among his fellows of not thinking about himself but of always trying to help somebody else. The broadcast in New Caledonia was from a ward in an Army Hospital. It was held on Christmas Eve and after the broadcast Private Oats was ’flown back to New Zealand.