WINNING THE VICTORIA CROSS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 177, 5 January 1915, Page 2

WINNING THE VICTORIA CROSS.

RESCUE UNDER FIRE. 'A MODEST HERO. Among the band of heroes who have been awarded the Victoria Cross is Ser-geant-Major White, of the Army Service Corps, who has been sent home to Carcliff after having been wounded in both legs in action at Le Cateau. SergeantMajor White went out with the expeditionary force during the early days •f the war, and saw much lighting at Mons, the Marne, and the Aiane. Talking of how he won tile V.C., he said: "We got orders at a quarter past nine at night to move a convoy in a certain direction. Wo went. Captain Gray wa* in charge of ours, and I was given tli< honor of next-in-charge. "Captain flrey said to me, 'mite what direction-'

" 'East sir,' I said, and oast it was. "We hadn't gone very far tfhen we ran into an ambusli of Uhlans. They gave it us hot. We were outnumbered, and I have a distant recollection of havi"S a 'S O ' at four of them with mv sword. I accounted for them.

i ( J3ut we had to retire, and wlien we had reached a place where we could pull ourselves together, I heard an officer ask if anyone had seen Captain Grev A reply came that Captain Grey had been shot down. On hearing this, I said I would go baek for liim, and I went back and found him lying in the field where we had had the 'scrap.' 1 picked him up and put him across my horse, and galloped back to safety with the bullets whistling around. I was hit in both leg*, and this stiff leg of mine has still got a bullet in it, which I have to go to the hospital to-morrow to have pulled out." This is by no means the first occasion on which Sergeant-Major White has dintinguished himself on the field of battle. He went through the South African war, and was with the 02nd Battery at Colenso, where he performed his first conspicuous act of bravery by bringing out, (under heavy fire, Lieutenant Roberts, Lord Roberts' son, who was mortally wounded. For this gallant act Ser-geant-Major White, who was wounded by a bullet which just missed the shin, was made Queen's Corporal and awarded the D.C.H.

!After the South African war, he went to India, and was there eleven years. He was in tlie Xortli-western frontier campaign, under Colenel Willcoeks, and was distinguished for work as a scout and rough-rider. Returning home, he had just one month of civilian life when war was declared against Germany, and he enlisted in the Armv Service Corps at Cardill.