VALIANT AUSTRALIANS
TWO AWARDED VICTORIA CROSS SERGEANT AND PRIVATE. BOTH KILLED IN DESERT BATTLE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) RUGBY, January 28. Two Australians, Sergeant William Henry Kirby and Private Percival Eric Gatwick, have been awarded the Victoria Cross for outstanding courage and devotion to duty in fighting on Miteriya Ridge (in Egypt) last October. Sergeant Kirby, who was left in charge of his platoon, cleared the way for his company to advance by attacking the enemy with a tommy-gun. He went out, under machine-gun fire, to mend the platoon line of communications. He later went forward alone to bomb a pocket of resistance, and was killed by a burst of machine-gun fire. Private Gatwick, when his platoon was held up by close-range fire, attacked an enemy post and completely destroyed the enemy with grenades. He then charged a second post with rifle and bayonet, but was killed before he reached it.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 January 1943, Page 4
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155VALIANT AUSTRALIANS Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 January 1943, Page 4
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