HEROIC FEAT
BURNING AMMUNITION SHIP SCUTTLED. BRITISH OFFICER AWARDED GEORGE CROSS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 17. The George Cross has been awarded to Lieutenant Dennis Copperwheat, a naval officer, whose act of gallantry averted a disaster at Malta. Enemy bombs set fire to an ammunition ship in the Grand Harbour at Valetta. Flames threatened to detonate the cargo of explosives and damage Valetta. Copperwheat, while the raid continued, led a party which put a launch alongside the burning ship, the plates of which were red hot, .some ammunition exploding. The party slung scuttling charges over the sides of -the ship, and then, Copperwheat, singlehanded. set them off with an electric cable from an exposed firing position on the beach. Though he was lying face downward, the explosion blew him head over heels, but he escaped injury. Much ammunition from the ship was saved, and was soon afterward dropped on Italy.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1942, Page 4
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151HEROIC FEAT Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1942, Page 4
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