AWARDED D.S.M.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 March 1943, Page 4

AWARDED D.S.M.

GALLANT SEA APPRENTICE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 27. Pat Gordon, a 19-year-old London apprentice, has been awarded the D.S.M. for manning for four days without a break a gun aboard the 10,0000ton vessel Dorset, on which he was a member of the crew for nearly two years. The Dorset was en route to Malta when she was attacked, but she was hit four times by bombs and petrol in the cargo caught fire before Captain Tuckett, who was awarded the D.S.C. and has since died in Australia, gave the order to abandon ship. Gordon, on one of the Dorset’s trips to New Zealand, went ashore at Wellington, and met at a dance a girl named Helen Reay, to whom he announced he is becoming engaged when he takes bis second mate’s ticket in a few weeks. Gordon said: “When we went clown, I was wearing round by neck the engagement ring which I was taking to New Zealand. ;As I am unable to deliver it myself, I have sent it on to her.” The Federal Steam Navigation Company’s motor-ship Dorset was one of the best-known vessels trading to New Zealand. With a gross 'tonnage of 13,041, she was built in 1934 by Workman Clark (1928), Ltd., at Belfast, and she and her sister-ship Durham, were the last two vessels built by that wellknown firm before it closed down. Miss Reay, who is employed by the Country Library Service, Wellington, said today (a Press Association message reports) that she had not received the engagement ring mentioned in the cable news. It is in Australia at present, but as soon as she received it her engagement to Gordon would be announced. Miss Reay is aged 22. She said she met Gordon at a dance given for Allied Service men. Patrick Alexander Trimble Gordon was born in South Africa. His father, a doctor, died when he was a child. His mother later went to England where she married Mr George Gilbert, of Bromley, Kent. Gordon was educated at Epsom College. On leaving school he joined the New Zealand Shipping Company as an apprentice. While serving on the Durham he visited New Zealand in 1940 and it was then that he met Miss Reay.