YOUNGEST SOLDIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 July 1919, Page 6

YOUNGEST SOLDIER.

NEW ZEALAND RECORD CLAIMED.

Very high honor has been brought to Canterbury by a private soldier who came back unostentatiously from the front just a little over two months ago (says the Ly.ttelton Times). This young soldier wears no British decoration, it is true, other than the 1914-15 ribbon, but he has three Allied decorations, which include the Medaille Militaire of France, ,the highest honor that the French Republic can confer on any soldier, and also the French Croix de Guerre and the Belgian Croix de Guerre. A special interest attaches to the soldier, apart .from his military decorations, for i,t is claimed by his: friends that he supplies an answer to the question asked in the Lyttelton Times reoently, "Who is the youngest New Zealand soldier?" Private W. L. Bennett; the soldier ih question, belongs to Riccarton, and is staying at present with his brother, Mr Thomas Bennett, a,t 101, Mandeville Road. His mother, Mrs M. H. Bennett, who is a widow, resides at Wanganui. Private Bennett enlisted in Christchurch on March 25, 1915, at the age of fifteen years ten months, his sixteenth birthday falling on May 11, 1915. He was passed physically fit immediately, and went into camp. He sailed with C Company of the Fifth Reinforcements, and first came under Are at Gallipoli in ,the Snvla Bay landing of August, 1915. He was wounded with sharpnel in the leg at Armentieres on August 5, 1918, but he was soon back again, and went through Passchendaele, where he received a bayonet wound in the right thigh. He returned .to the front after brief spell, and at Cambrai, on September 27, 1918, a high explosive shell blew away the whole of his bottom jaw and chin, and half of the tongue. He was for seven or eight months in hospital in England, and returned to New Zealand in the Tainui on April 30, 1919, in his fifth year of service, but still in his "teens." Private Bennett earned his three decorations between March and September of 1918. He won the Belgian Croix de Guerre in March, near Gouzeaucourt, for gallantry in capturing German machineguns under fire, his own commanding officer recommending him for a foreign decoration. Four months later, in July, while attached to a regiment of French cuirassiers, as a member of the Cyclist Corps, he gave material assistance in capturing a German patrol near Rheims, and for his services he was recommended by the French captain for a decoration, and he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. Within two months, while still attached ,to the Cuirassiers, Private Bennett, when out with a raiding party, saved the life of a wounded French soldier, bringing him in under fire. For this he was recommended for a decoration by the French officer commanding ,the regiment, Lieutenant De Leurence, and he received the highest decoration in the gift of the French republic, the Medaille Miliaire of the First Class (silver star). Within a couple of weeks he was severely wounded near the historic ruins of Cambrai. The French orders won by Private Bennett cannot be conferred by an officer below the rank of Field Marshal. Private Bennett received them both on the same day. at the hands of President Poincare, in Bnnlovarde de la Concorde, The Belgian Croix de Guerre was given to him by King Albert while ho was in hospital at Boulogne. Private Bennett wears his medals in accordance with the French tradition,' and he is proudest of the little silver Medaille Mflitaire, inscribed' on the Teverse, "Valenr et Discipline." It,is the French equivalent for the V.C., and as in the case of the VC., every officer is called upon salute it, so in the case of the Medaille Militaire, no 1 French civilian will pass ,the wearer without uncovering. _ Private Bennett suffered some facial disfigurement by his latest wound, but he is to report at the Jaw Hospital at Dunedin for .treatment.