BABY’S WOOLLIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1941, Page 3

BABY’S WOOLLIES

GIFT FOR AUSTRALIAN STAFF SERGEANT. VICTIM OF PRACTICAL JOKE. . I found the inmates of the military wards at the hospital still chuckling over the misfortune of a burly Australian staff sergeant, who is confined to the ward for treatment, states a writer in a South African paper. It was not for a riot wound. He is the holder of the D.C.M. and bar, a veteran of two world wars, and as tough as they ’make them. He has collected a multitude of friends. One of them offered to replace the dressinggown he has worn since he was admitted. Two days later the parcel duly arrived, and an admiring crowd gathered round the Aussie’s bed as he unwrapped the parcel. There was dead silence. Then a hoot of laughter reverberated through the ward as out tumbled a complete set of baby’s woollies—pink jacket, woolly combinations, napkins and all the trimmings of a baby’s layette. The Aussie’s fist could just be wormed into some of the garments and, as he told me with a chuckle “The things would hardly have kept both my feet warm.” The dressing-gown arrived next day. The. layette was sent to the maternity ward. The victim of this practical joke was associated in the last war with one of the most famous of Australian V.C.'s, Lieut. Albert Jacka, who won his award at Gallipoli when he went berserk in the face of a Turkish attack and utterly regardless of his safety, cleared the Turks out of a trench they had just captured. When his ammunition ran out, he jumped from the trench and ran along the top, clubbing every Turkish head he saw. Jacka was promoted from the ranks and, as a lieutenant, won the Military Cross in France when he led a dozen men against hundreds of Germans, captured a machine-gun post and drove back the advance.