VAIN ATTEMPT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 July 1942, Page 4

VAIN ATTEMPT

TO SAVE SICK CHILD.

AIRMAN FATHER’S RETURN FROM CANADA. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) . LONDON, July 5. June Challis, a three-year-old child, died shortly after her father had paid his daily call. The child was improving until she suffered a relapse a few days ago. A London cable on June 9 stated: The R.A.F. rushed Leading Aircraftman Jim Challis, of Stratford, from Canada across the Atlantic to the bedside of his three-year-old daughter, June, who was dangerously ill in Britain with diphtheria. Aircraftman Challis ' was undergoing staff training at an isolated station on the Canadian prairies. Mrs Challis believed that her daughter’s one hope of recovery was to see her adored father. The doctor in attendance assured the authorities that the case was desperate, whereupon Whitehall sent a message to Ottawa and a few hours afterwards Aircraftman Challis was speeding eastwards aboard a Canadian Air Force plane. He covered 2.000 miles that day. The moment he reached an Eastern Canadian airfield he boarded a Liberator bomber, taking precedence over important officials awaiting a passage. There was a moving scene in the hospital when June saw her father for whom she had been fretting and crying since she fell ill. Aircraftman Challis was given a compassionate -posting to Britain.