COLONEL GREVILLE

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 249, 22 October 1942, Page 4

COLONEL GREVILLE

"NO MAN COULD HAVE DIED BETTER." TRIBUTE FROM BRIGADIER. "He died as we all would like to do, having done a magnificent job and carried his men forward to their ob~ jective. He took it with his adjutant and ten men. When I got up about an hour later the party had built up to 70, and he had all his guns and was prepared to fight off anyone." This tribute was paid to Lieuten-ant-Colonel A. W. Greville, of Auckland (formerly of Blenheim), in a letter from his brigadier describing his death in the battle for Egypt in July. '"I ordered up the leading people of the next battalion and they had just arrived in with us when about 40 German tanks shot us up in the dark, set fire to some of our vehicles, and finally, about 6 a.m., when all our guns had been knocked out, rolled in on us," the letter continued. "Greville was going from post to post encouraging the men and calling out: 'Stay down and wait for their infantry' when a bullet hit him in the forehead and he died instantly. , . . No man could have died better, It was a grim fight and his battalion gave more than it got until the final episode." Another soldier described the sams action as follows: — "The Germans launched a terrific counter-attack. Our men, tired out as they were by previous engagements, never had a chance, especially as the Germans brought some of their heavy tanks into action. Imagine infantrymen trying to fight tanks! It was in this encounter that Lieutenant-Colonel Greville died. The boys almost wor - shlpped him, for in every bayonet charge that the battalion made he had always been out in front leading them on. A rifle was clasped in the hands of his dead body."