SHOT THROUGH HEART BUT WOULD NOT STAY DEAD

Chronicle (Levin), 10 July 1947, Page 7

SHOT THROUGH HEART BUT WOULD NOT STAY DEAD

o Fred Cox was leading stoker in tlie R.N. He signed up for twelve and nine 'way back before tlie war and lie only had eiglit years to do when the wai" broke out. In 1941 he came out to Egypt from Blighty on an L.C.I. — that was in the days hefore L.C.I. 's hecame common. If I rememher rightly, there were only two or three in the flotilla, and they cercainly were a novelty to the troops who had never seen these mecnanised dhows hefore. The arrived in Egypt just in time to get out of it again— Kiwis will re. member that things in Greece were getting a little hit tough around about April 25 and the L.C.I. 's were just what was needed to get the lads off the beach on to the waiting ships at Porto Kafti and other plaees. So Fred Cox and his merry gang came into the picture. At night time they would steal into the bay, down would drop the front of the landing craft and a thousand or so wearily silent men would creep aboard to he whipped out to the invisihle ships a mile or so out. During the daytime, however, the fun hegan for the L.C.I. crews. The Aegean Isles are fairly proiihc and offer pienty of hiamg places, but at .that time the Luftwafie had lots of machines and petrol and nothing much else to do, so they spent a lot of time looking for evacution craft of any description. Life was hectic. On April 29, the job had been done to all intents and purposes, and Fred Cox rewed up his two diesel engines, while the skipper headed for Crete. They arrived there without incident and spent the remaining month in very much the same manner as the N.Z. Division. Then, of course, hell hroke loose, and within a week the L.C.I. 's were needed once again. But now there was only one L.C.I. the other copped it during the intensive hlitz hefore the invasion. Sphakia was the main evacuation beach and things seemed to be proceeding more or less to plan when the last L.C.I. suffered a direct hit while hiding close in shore during the forenoon on May 29. None of the crew, fortunateiy, were on hoard, and they viewed their clumsy old craft take a final nose dive witk mixed feelings. A sailor without a ship is a sorry sight at any time, but when his sunken hoat happens to he one of the only ones which could have taken him away from a land which isn't too healthy, his misery is understandable. Deciding that they had hetter join the queue for the next hoat out, the crew set off overland for the assembly point at Sphakia. But they never got there. A few miles irom the coast, they encountered a hand of ctangerousiy armed Germans, They themselves had no arms, of the lethal sort, that is, so they just put their hands in the air and, if one might he allowed to distort Shakespeare, sighed like iurnaces, even in the cannon's mouth. One of the Gerries was a little hit trigger-happy and a shot rang out. • Fred Cox wandered on for- a few-feet and then fell to the ground, shot through the heart. One might think that as Fred Cox is the hero of this tale it can now he taken as read; hut such is not the case. uecause, you see, ±red Cox was not dead — not hy a long way. .rred Cox is one of the medicai mysteries of this war — X-ray plates and careful tracking of the hullet hy the scar tissue has proved conclusively that the hullet passed righfc through his heart. On his left breast 2

+* t. ;« is a neat little hole and in his hack is a corresponding hole, not so little. Let him tell his own story from now on: "As we stood there facing the Gerries, I suddenly felt as though someone had swiped me. on the hack with a spade. I wandered on for a few feet and then I goLa feeling as though a hug'e triangle of water was pouring on me. I passed out. A little later I came to again. Blokes were leanmg over me an looiung mighty glum. . ' Help me up,' I asked one chap— coo, you should. have seen his face! They dragged me off to the aerodrome, plunked me in a plane and flew me over to Athens — Kokinia, P.O.W. hospital. For days and weeks they examined me, pummelled me, made me run around the block, macie me carry heavy weights, Xrayed me, called in German specialists from Berlin to examine me, and in the end all they .could say was, 'Cox, you've heen shot through the heart and there 's no medicai reason on earth why you should he standing here. But you're quite fit and there 's no reason why you should stay in hospital. Off to Germany with you." weii, that's Fred Cox's tale — almost. * He spent four years in various prison camps in Poland and Germany and duly got hack home. As soon aa he landed, the Navy said: "Ha — here is a hloke who still has a few years to serve — whip him in! ' ' "But," said Leading Stoker Cox, who incidentally got the D.S.M. for gaiiantry in crete and Greece, "i have heen shot through the heart." "We don't give a darn if you've been shot through the air, mate — you've still three years to do — come inspinner!" So Leading Stoker Cox, now Chief Petty Officer, who should have heen dead six years ago, is stil sailing the seven seas and hating it— he has a nice litle hairdressing business jacked up in High Wycombe, Bucks, and he wants to get on with, it.