AWARD OF V.C.

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23967, 7 June 1943, Page 6

AWARD OF V.C.

MAORI LIEUTENANT’S GALLANTRY HIGH RESPECT FROM HIS MEN (Official War Correspondent N.Z.E.F.) CAIRO, June 5. Second-Lieutenant Ngarimu. the first Maori to win the Victoria Cross—the sixth awarded to a New Zealander in this war—commanded an East Coast platoon on a vital hill, a steep, high feature in the Matmata hills, from which the enemy could have stopped the whole of the New Zealanders’ outflanking movement round the Mareth line. Both of the only two men of Second-Lieutenant Ngarimu’s platoon who are still with the battalion were on leave when the award became known this afternoon. Through the rest of the battalion there seemed to be a feeling of quiet pride, mingled with deep regret at the loss of a courageous soldier and a growing leader of their race. A great many men in his company had known him as boy on his father’s farm at Ruatoria, at school and college, or as a soldier of the Maori Battalion since February. 1940. He went to England with the battalion and was with it through Greece, Crete, the Western Desert, and from Bardia to the Tabaga gap. Army records show that he was 24 when he' - was killed, but he was believed to be several years younger. 'L' » Lieutenant Ngarimu’s family.',nave for generations held a high place in one of the greatest of the Maori fighting sub-tribes, the Aitanga a Mate of the East Coast’s Ngatiporous. They have shown in battle the same great, fearless qualities which the men of the Maori Battalion saw in Lieutenant Ngarimu. He was calm and fearless almost to the point of recklessness. A senior officer of the battalion said he had never known a harder job than that which Lieutenant Ngarimu was given, nor had he seen tougher fighting. “I saw him after he had been wounded twice and was still under intense Are. He was quite calm and collected and just refused to leave his platoon,” the officer said. Often jocularly told by brother officers that he would make a better parson than an officer, Lieutenant Ngarimu was widely respected as a quiet clean-living man. Even while at school he took a keen and serious interest in his people. Although considerably younger than many men in his company, he accepted responsibility calmly and easily. Early in his battle experience, while still a private, he had t take over command of his platoon hj the midst of the fierce, confused fighting in Crete. Although suffering from three wounds, which normally would have put him out of action, he continued to command it until taken to work in the battalions intelligence section In the weeks after Greece and Crete when the intelligence section had to complete months of , "J days, senior officers saw in Lieutenant Ngarimu what they called his guts for work." For weeks he worked late into the night, with only a tew hours for rest. His reward came _in the Western Desert, early in the winter of 1941. when he was sent to take ms commission, which he received Anzac Day 1942. He returned to ms battalion In the following November, first as a platoon commander, and then Ss intelligence officer and again as platoon commander until the time o h Durlnß* the time he was away from the battalion, his older pother Harry Ngarimu, was wounded in the g nt El Alamein and returned to New Zealand Only once previously in New Zealand’ military history has an officer been awarded a T was Captain Charles Upham.