AWARDS PRESENTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 173, 24 July 1942, Page 4

AWARDS PRESENTED.

DOMINION HEROES CEREMONY IN DESERT (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent) EL ALAMEIN, July 20. Two New Zealand non-commis-sioned officers—one decorated for gallantry in Crete and the other for his bravery in the first Libvan camPj*ign —were among eight~ officers and men who received their awards from the Duke of Gloucester in the Western Desert yesterday afternoon. They were SercrpfintQ Thongs Gill, British Empire of Wellington, and Mervin Curtis, ot Auckland. Duk , e> o Wh ?,, was accompanied General Sir Claude Auchinleck, pinned the ribbons on the men, who stood in line on a small hill in front of the Commander-in-Chief's headquarters. Both he and General Auchinleck were particularly interested in the story of Sergeant ("Jill Army Service Corps, who las served V6ry PhasG of the deser t t . ®f r At ai L t i Gill received his decorasallantry in clearing a for his trucks through thermos bombs dropped by the Italians in the New Zealanders' first Libyan camK'ft b campaign last winter he left Bengasi when it was surrounded and made a 10-dav march across 300 miles of desert to'Tobruk. Sergeant Curtis, who is now servmg with an anti-aircraft regiment, saved the life of a Fleet Air Arm y hom he dragged from a plane shot down in front of his machinegun Post just before the invasfon of