SERGT. ELLIOTT, V.C.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1942, Page 3

SERGT. ELLIOTT, V.C.

CHEERED IN MESS AT MAADI CONGRATULATED IBY COLONEL & ADJUTANT. RESERVED & MODEST HERO. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) CAIRO, September 23. Cheers rang through a sergeants’ mess in Maadi camp at lunchtime today when it was announced that Sergeant Keith Elliott had been awarded the Victoria Cross. Auburn haired and stocky. Elliott was eating his lunch when he was called from the mess by his adjutant. His colonel was wailing outside. The colonel and the adjutant were the first to congratulate him. , When he told his history to me, he told .it with great reservation, laying stress on what the men with him had done, and telling nothing of what, he himself had done. “Tell them my pals did the job and God looked after us,” he said. He has been five times wounded — four times in the action which won him the V.C., and once in Crete. He has been in every action in which the New Zealanders have fought—Greece, Crete, Libya, ( and Egypt. He had justrejoined his battalion on July 13, after recovering from malaria contracted in Syria. Two days later came the New Zealanders’ grim attack on Ruweisat Ridge. Despite the four wounds he received in this attack, he is fit and tanned, and ready to go back to the line.

Throughout his career in the Second N.Z.E.F.. Elliott has been a member of the 22nd Wellington Battalion, commanded for many months by Colonel L. W. Andrew, a V.C. of the last war. Elliott’s V.C. is the first decoration the 22nd Battalion has won. Andrew used to call them jokingly “the ribbonless battalion.”,

One of the youngest of a family of nine—he has two brothers and six sisters —Elliott was born on Anzac Day, 1916. He was educated at the Litton Street School, Feilding, and the Feilding Agricultural High School. He played half-back for Feilding High School in 1933 with the well-known Manawatu forward, Jack Finlay. When he moved over to Pahiatua, he won his place in the Bush district representative team in 1938 and 1939, touring the South Island with the All Black Athol Mahoney’s side.

Since his heroic exploits at Ruweisat Ridge, Elliott has been out of the front line. He is now on a weapons training course at the base camp.

' Sergeant Elliott is the fifth New Zealander to receive the Victoria Cross in this war. Four of them have held the rank of sergeant. The first award was made to Sergeant J. A. Ward. R.N.Z.A.F., a Wanganui school teacher, in August, 1941, for his courage in climbing out on to the wing of his bomber and extinguishing a fire after a warning to abandon the aircraft had been given. His action saved the plane. Sergeant Ward subsequently lost his life in action over enemy territory. The next three awards were announced in October of the same year. The recipients were Second Lieutenant C. H. Upham, of Christchurch (now reported prisoner of war), Sergeant A. C. Hulme, of Nelson: and Sergeant J. D. Hinton, of Southland (-prisoner of war). The first ’ two received the medal for gallantry in Crete and Sergeant Hinton for gallantry in Greece.