FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD D.C.M.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 129, 1 June 1916, Page 6

FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD D.C.M.

“I WAS AFRAID, BUT FELT I MUST DO MY BIT.”

A remarkable story of the youngest winner of the Distinguished Conduct Medal —an Irish Canadian boy named Anthony Grinley, who joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force when he was only fourteen —is told in a letter written from the front by the Eev D. T. Hiley, pastor of a West Norwood Baylist church. The letters appear in the “Norwood Press and Dulwich Advert user. ’’ Wen Mr Hiley asked Grinley why he joined the army, he repried, “I tVlt the country was in trouble, and that they wanted my help.”

“So anxious was the boy to get to France,” says Mr Hiley, 'that he crossI ed the Channel as a stowaway.” ! Grinley won the D.C.M. during the battle at Festubert by volunteering to carry back to headquarters news of the desperate position of his company. “I asked him why he offered to go, when it was so dangerous,” says Mr Hiley. “He was very candid about it. 'Well,’ he said, 'it was not so dangerous as staying there, and I thought that if T got through they would not send me back again”

“The distance he had to traverse was about three-quarters of a mile, but it i was a terrible three-quarters of a mile. Anthony got through to headquarters with the message, but his hope of not returning was not realised, for the colonel sent him back with the repiy, because he alone knew the way. I asked him if h e was afraid. 'Yes, I j was; but I felt I must do my bit.’ I “He started off on the perilous journey on which the lives of men depended. and again he threaded his way through barbed wire, waterlogged trenches, and past dead heroes. By I the blessing of God he got back with i tiro reply ”