A GALLANT SOLDIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 March 1918, Page 3

A GALLANT SOLDIER.

LIEUT. E. A. PORRITT RECEIVES MILITARY CROSS,

Official advice has now been received of the grant of the Military Cross to Lieutenant E. A. Porritt for gallantry in the field on October 4 last at Gravenstafel. lie was then acting as adjutant to the 2nd Auckland Battalion. Early in the attack on that dale the second in command of the battalion was killed, two of the company commanders killed, and the other two wounded. Thb commanding officer had his ankle shattered by an IS-pounder shell, and handed over the command of (he battalion to Lieutenant Porritt, who commanded it for the rest of the dav. The ground over which the troops had to advance was very wet, and pitted with concrete dug-outs filled with German machinegunners. The going was difficult, but the men behaved splendidly, and under thft command of Lieutenant Porritt the battalion reached its objective, and with only one junior officer left to each company hung on to its position and sue* eesßfully repelled three counter-attacks. Only five officers of the battalion were unwounded, but the n.c.o.'s stepped into the duties of t-he officers who went down, and they pulled the battalion through, a number of the n.c.o.'s earning the award of the Military Medal and a few gaining the coveted Distinguished Conduct Medal. Lieutenant Porritt is a son of Colonel E. W. ■Porritt, of Paeroa. and a grandson of the Rev. T. Porritt, of Seatoun, who has always taken a keen interest in military matters and who has another grandson at the front, a son on a hospital ship, and a' son in camp with the Thirty-sixth Reinforcements.