DECORATED BY ROYAL DUKE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 17, 23 October 1942, Page 4

DECORATED BY ROYAL DUKE

TWO N.Z. OFFICERS

Two New Zealand non-commis-sioned officers—one decorated for gallantry in Crete and the other for bravery during the first Libyan campaign—were among eight British officers and other ranks who received their awards from His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucester, in the Western Desert. The New Zcalandcrs were Sergeant Thomas Gill of Wellington who received the British Empire Medal and Sergeant Mervin Curtis of Auckland who received the Military Miedal. • The Duke, who was accompanied by the Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Claude Auclikileck, pinned the ribbons on the men as they stood in line on a small rise in front of the Commander-in-Chief's headquarters. Both His Royal Highness and General Auchinleck were particularly interested in the story of Sergeant Gill, an A.S.C. non-commis-sioned officer who has served through every phase of the desert campaigns. The sergeant received his decoration for gallantry in dealing a path for his trucks through bombs dropped by the Italians during the first Libyan campaign. During last winter's campaign Sergeant Gill left Benghazi when it Avas surrounded and made a ten day march across three hundred miles of desert, to Tobruk. Sergeant Curtis, who is now serving with an ack-ack regiment, saved the life of. a Fleet Air Arm pilot whom he dragged from a plane which was. shot down in front of his machine-gun post just before the invasion of Crete;