Strange Case Of "Gunner Chrisp" Solved After Five Years

Chronicle (Levin), 2 September 1948, Page 4

Strange Case Of "Gunner Chrisp" Solved After Five Years

The strange case of "Gunner Chrisp," the man without a memory who was picked up in New Zealand uniform on the battlefield of Tunisia in 1943, has been solved. Advice received by the New Zealand police from the Wa-r Oflice in London is that he is "1058760 L.A.C. George Wallace, o,f the Royal Air Fo'rce." No further particulars have been sent.

Of all the cases of lost identity investigated by the New Zealand Army and police authorities, none proved more puzzling than this — and none is a better example of the patient, pamstaking attention given by them in solving the riddle of an unknown, unclaimed man. The winds of spring" were ^blowing ' across the hills of Tunisia the last dust and smoke clouds of the Battle of North Africa when, on May 9, 1943, a few days before the German surrendel', an ambulance convoy pulled up outside • a New Zealand casualty clearing station behind the raprdly moving batt.e line. From one of the ambulances orderlies lifted out a man who was suffering not from wounds but from physical exhaustion. He haid been -found wandering, earlier the same day, among United Kingdom troops in the Enfidaville area. But he was wearing a field' service cap Ibearing the New Zealand badge, and he wore New Zealand titles on jthe shoulders of his battle dress, ; and so he was taken to be a soldier [of the Second N-Z.E.F.

I On this man were found tatter[ed remains of an Army pay book, :a notebook with written entries, |and a wallet with photographs of :the man himself, another of a woman, and a view of Palliser Bay, Wellington. These things gave little about him other than that his name appeared to be "Chrisp." When he was well enough to be questioned the .man could add nothing. He ■ did not know his first name, regimental nmnber, the name of his. lnext-of-kin, or the part of New [Zealand from which he may have [come . . . | By every visible token, his [memory of everything that he ihad been or done before that time [had gone completely from his imind. He was moved back for 'treatment at two of th-e New Zealand hospitals. 1 Every means, [medical and psychological, that were known for restoring a lost memory were atteni.pt.ed in the weeks and months that followed. Hypnotic and shock treatment were applie-d. Sisters and patients in the hospital spoke to the man about place after place on the imap- pf New Zealand, but not a key #a.s fopnd to unlock the past.