BOY'S BRAVERY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 270, 12 February 1941, Page 3

BOY'S BRAVERY

THREE WOMEN SAVED A boy aged 1Q worked alone inside a huge pile of debris for three hours rescuing people who had been trapped when n bomb struck a block of houses' in London. Some people were killed and others injured..

The boy, Stanley Pipe, volunteered to be lowered down a small hols cleared at the top of the debris when the cries of the trapped people were heard. A post warden in charge of the operations said- "Cries were heard coming from beneath the ruins of one of the houses. He worked from the top of the debris and made a small hole through which only a small person could pass. A young lad with a helmet on was standing by, and I asked him: 'Are you going to give me a hand?' and he replied 'O.K.'

"He was lowered through the hole by a rope, and with only the light of a torch shone from above reached one woman, who was brought up through the debris, he got into the front of the building, and found two sisters, the Mioses "Ranwell, pinned under timber beams.

"The boy managed .to shift the beams, but his way back was cut off because of shifting masonry, and he had to drag the women nearer to the front.

"A squadron leader of the demolition squad got down, and though he could not get through to the boy, instructed him how to pin up pieces of timber till an aperture was made large enough for Stanley and the two women to be dragged through. Stanley was underneath the debris from 10 p.m. until one in the morning.

STRONG GUARD ON SINGAPORE

"Despite the ping pong nature of the Thailand-Indo China war, the British in Singapore are not taking any risks, in view of the possibility that the Japanese may use the conflict as a pretex to march southward," says the Singapore correspondent of the New York Post.

When lie visited Singapore in 1938, he adds, he found the narrow peninsula in the region of Alor Star north of Singapore, the most vulnerable point in the Malayan defences, but he is convinced, following a recent tour of the defencc area, that no matter how and where the attacking forces struck they would now encounter tcrrilic difficulties. "The British have plugged the peninsula right to the Thailand fion-* tier," lie says, "and are pouring in tens of thousands of new troops, including large numbers of Indian infantry and artillery units. Formidable fixed fortifications have been constructed throughout the tcriitory, and numerous air fields have been laid ready" for use."