DRAMATIC ESCAPE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 312, 24 March 1928, Page 1

DRAMATIC ESCAPE

THRILLING WAR STORY RECALLED FRENCH SOLDIER’S FATE By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. PARIS, Friday. The terrible death of Edmond Augier, aged 34, a commercial traveller, caused through his car catching lire after a collision with a post, recalls one of the most dramatic of the authenticated escapes during the war. On August 24, 1914, Augier was attached to a moiAnted patrol which was overtaken by Uhlans in the Ardennes. His horse was shot. Augier faced the enemy and killed one Uhlan. Then he was taken prisoner. He was ordered to carry a German flag through a village, but he refused to do so. He was thereupon taken to a roadside on the outsorts of the village where there were eight other Frenchmen. A squad of the 33rd German infantry fired at the prisoners. Augier received four bullets in his arms, legs and side, but was not killed. That night he recovered consciousness among the bodies of his eight countrymen. He appealed to a passing cavalry officer, who fired at him and rode on. Augier lay where he was for three days. Then some Germans found him, and, thinking he had been wounded in lighting, took him to a hospital. Augier returned to France on September 22, 1916, in a convoy of wounded men. He was awarded the Military Medal and was promised the Cross of the Legion of Honour, but refused it when it was offered to him after the war.—A. and N.Z.