GEORGE CROSS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 December 1940, Page 8

GEORGE CROSS

AWARDED TO BRITISH WORK ON DELAYED-ACTION BOMBS. z HEROIC AIRMEN DECORATED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.3 a.m.) RUGBY, December 4. The George Cross, the highest civilian decoration for gallantry, has been awarded to Arthur Merriman. a part-time experimental officer attached to the research section of the Ministry of Supply. According to a “Gazette” notice, Mr Merriman received the Cross “for conspicuous bravery in connection with bomb disposal” and it is understood that on several occasions he dismantled delayedaction bombs which had fallen on important streets and buildings. Among the military awards is the D.S.O. to a 23-year-old pilot-officer, Geoffrey Cheshire. The officer was carrying out photographic operations at Cologne when a shell splinter detonated a flare which was just about to be dropped. Although the fire was followed by a blinding explosion, which carried away a considerable part of the fuselage, Pilot-Officer Cheshire managed to regain control of the plane, which lost considerable height and was subject to intense antiaircraft fire, and successfully piloted the damaged aircraft to its base. The wireless operator of an aeroplane, Sergeant Henry Davidson, has received the D.F.M. Although so severely injured by an explosion that he was unable to see, Sergeant Davidson persuaded the rear-gunner to guide his burned fingers to the wireless control, which he continued to operate until he realised that the wireless had been put out of action. In spite of intense suffering. Sergeant Davidson consistently refused to be landed at a station nearer than his own base.