V.C. DEED RETOLD

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1930, Page 2

V.C. DEED RETOLD

Captain Liddell, was flying over Bruges, Ghent,- and Osterid on the morning of July 31, 1915, engaged upon the usual daily reconnaissance work. There came a sudden attack from a German aeroplane, which caught our machine with a burst of fire. Down it fell in a nose dive for full thre feet, and turned over.,

Pilot, observer, and aeroplane, were surely doomed to destruction. Then happened tlie w'onderful, almost incredible thing. Captain Liddell was badly wounded, his right thigh was broken, and he had fainted from the shock. But he came back to consciousness while still in the air, and he managed to right the machine.

German bullets flew about him. He could not climb to escape them, hut he started to fly home. Control wheel and- throttle control were smashed.

Yet in this wounded man, weak and dazed with pain, still lived an indomitable spirit and an uncanny skill which enabled him to nurse the machine along. At last he appeared over a Belgian aerodrome near (Furnes, and sought to land. Even this he accomplished safely, although the struts of his un-der-carriage had been badly damaged bv German fire.

Then he collapsed. It was half an hour since he had been hit.

So Captain Liddell brought back his machine arid saved the Tifioi of his observer. A month later he died of his wounds.