1941-01-03 — Page 33

THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 3, 1941

V.C. BY

SCARED SPEECH

(By A Special Correspondent)

"IT WAS AWFUL dunno how I got through it," Flight-Lieutenant Roderick Alastair Brook Learoyd, V.C., hero of the Dortmund-Ems Canal raids, told me.

****** WE'D

RAIDERS WITH SECRET

INFORMATION?

The Australian Navy Minister, Mr.

1904 GROUP William Hughes, stat-

REGISTER

Registration days under the Na- tional, Service (Armed Forces) Acts for men born in 1904 were announced in London yesterday.

January 11 is the date assigned for those barn between July 1 and

But it was not his epic flight through a tornado of bursting shells over miles of enemy territory to which he was referring. It was to an ordeal through 31, December, 1904, and January

he had had to face an which he had just passed audience and make a speech.

Crowding the little centuries- old council chamber at New Romney, Kent, were fisherfolk and townspeople

whom among Roderick Learoyd spent his boy- hood.

The walls told of the deeds of other Romney heroes, and an age- worn crested ding speaks of the Romney whence ships sailed br- fore the Norman Conquest,

Paled, Fidgeted But in all its history Romney

had never had a hero like this broad-shouldered. 6ft. lin. airinan with the crimson ribbon on his tune

Certainly not one more modest than twenty-seven - year - old Flight-Lieutenant Learoyd M lar come to receive from the Mayor the honorary freedom of the borough in recognition of his valour.

+-

But he looked like a a dentist's waiting room.

man in

The Mayor spoke of his bra- very in the face of the enemy. The fairheaded giant in R.A.F. blue at his side paled, fidgeted, then in relief nodded to an old school chum in the audience.

Desperate

"It is the most honourable dis- tinction it is in our power to con- fer upon you,'

"said the Mayor asl

|

18 for those born between Jan- uary 1 and 30, June, 1904. Bri- tish Wireless.

ESCAPED---"BE OFF" TO NAZIS

ed in Canberra yester- day that the Nava! Board is investigating statements by survi- vors that Nazi Pacific raiders possess infor- mation indicating they know the British Admiralty code for communicating with merchant shipping.

Interviews with sur- vivors give no hint of the whereabouts of bases from which the raiders' supply ships are refuelled and fitted. Reuter.

A HUSSAR OFFICER back in England after escaping thrice from the Germans in Flanders slept a night in an empty house which he had comman- deered while disguised as a Belgian. Several times German N.C.O.s arrived and begged for a night's lodging. Assuming an air of authority, he refused. morning alarm. The Huns went away.

First

captured with

twelve

hers, the officer was marched to et tobacco and food on them. Brussels, where inhabitants press-

While being marched to St. Trone he slipped out of the column, clawed his way through a hedge and threw himself flat. He lay there until dark, scarce. ly daring to move his cramped limbs.

Without food and water he de- cided to risk calling at a lonely cottage, where a peasant gave him food and a Sunday sult. Thus he became disguised as a Belgian re- fugee. |

to

He told the Nazi he had been to Flebecq, without even

PETAIN

re-

BANG

THEM'

Page

Goering's night múr- derers picked out a "troop concentration" for attack the other night.

The

Chelsea troops were the Royal Hospital pensioners

- men who fought their battles years be- fore Goering and his louts knew

what an aeroplane was like,

But it takes more than a mur- der 'plane to move these veterans. They are angry because

they cannot hit back.

"We old chape may not be much good to-day.”

." said Cor- poral E. Marsh, South African War veteran, of the Royal War- wickshire Regiment, “but we'd have a bang at the devils if we could."

Corporal Marsh was one of five men who were buried in debris when a high explosive bomb fell at the junction of the North front and West wing, blowing holes in the walls and devastating several flors.

His Lucky Smoke

Corporal Marsh does not usual- ly go into a shelter when there is a raid. He stays in his cubicle on the ground floor: but he can- not smoke in the wards, so he went out to join Sergeant G. and three semi-blind men in their shelter under the staircase just for a smoke.

The staff of a London restau-Clarke, Driver W. G. Cox ant shelled peas and cut beans in An air-raid shelter during

Members of the public helped.

SCORNS EQUALITY

AND POLITICAL LIBERTY

MARSHAL PETAIN, in an article published by the Revue des Deux Mondes, one of the principal monthly reviews in France, now appearing in the non-occupied territory, contributes his own views on the political philosophy which he is trying to introduce.

It takes the form of an attempt:

to dispose of the Republican de-. vice, "Liberty, equality, fratern- village ity," for which the Marshal wish- town hall, to ed to substitute the notions of see his brother. But Flebecq is authority and obedience towards

а amall

He got as far as Ellezelles, he handed the airman an illumin-be challenged by a German lance-

corporal. ated vellum scroll.

Flight-Lieutenant Learoyd, V.C., rose, looked desperately at the sca of faces before him, shuffled his! feet....then went to it. Hel thanked them for the honour. He would treasure the scroll all his life.

a

a town in which the town hall, the State.

escort.

EXCELLENT RESPONSE TO APPEAL

le the biggest building, and the "We must teach our young peo- Hussar was marched off under ple," he writes, "that liberty can | "I am afraid 1 am not very

only be exercised when combined good at making speeches, 80 A few minutes later he slipped with recognition of a secular au- cnce again thank you all very away from his escort, and enter thority, which they must respect much," he concluded and sat ed a cafe, looking for

all the and

obey." world like a bearded refugee in "must" is printed twice in italics. APPEAL FOR THE IMMEDIATE

down.

Kentish Fire

his best suit.

must

The

word

Nor

Is

"THE

RESPONSE

TO

MY

FORMATION OF FIRE BOMB FIGHTING PARTIES IN BUSI-

"There was a crash." he said. "We wore

in emothered wreckage and cement dust. The powder almost suffocated us. I should think we swallowed enough cement to build a town hall."

Driver Cox, formerly of the Royal Army Service Corps, knows what bombing is like.

"I heard the scream of a bomb. house door and then back to the The blast flung me to the boiler colonnade

"I could hardly speak because I was choked by soot. Still I re- member things quite as bad when I was a serving soldier."

BENGAL! VESSEL

CAPSIZES

Eighteen lives were lost as the result of the sinking of a coun- try craft in the channel between Chittagong and Sandwip Island, says a message from Bengal,

The boat, which was carrying 22 passengers, was caught in a gale and capsized in mid-stream. -Reuter,

He is scornful of political liber- Further on, enemy troops were ty, "even if it confers the right NESS AND RESIDENTIAL DIS-liminary reports from all regions The audience rose and cheer, everywhere and he was repeated-to drop a voting paper into an TRICTS SHOWS SIGNS OF BE- indicated that without waiting for

urn every four years." ed, gave him three rounds of ly challenged.

At Pecq the bridge was down, full liberty of labour to be ac- HERBERT MORRISON, MINIS- Bremen, great numbers of men ING SATISFACTORY," MR. the approach of wardens and hand-clapping known as Kan-

was but he managed to cross the river, corded "for in this matter choice TER OF HOME SECURITY DE- and over. And not the least glad and at Lille he found himself in must be restricted by economic CLARED IN A STATEMENT services either individually or

battle between possibilities and by the exigencies LAST NIGHT. was Flight Lieutenant Learoyd, the midst of a

French and Germans.

of national interests."

tish fire. The ceremony

• V.C.

In the audience were his father and mother, Major and Mrs. R. B. Learoyd, and his sister, Lesley Brook an actress.

He is spending a week's leave ay his home, Frogs' Hall, New Romney, while awaiting a new appointment. He had flown there,

CRIME IN SHELTER

A seventeen-year-old milkman was on his round at Gravelhill, Bexley-heath, Kent, when two youths asked him if he would like some cigarettes,

he

In the general confusion got hold of a bicycle, negotiated road blocks, and reached Grand Pont, only to be searched by a

his

ar-

German soldier, who found Army whistle and torch. For the third time he was rested.

Imprisoned

and at Abbeville later at St. Ricquiers, where he was placed in a large barn full of civilians, he again escaped.

This time he got to the coast, where a friend helped him to get a small rowing boat.

It was midnight when salied. A little way out

Gaw

of

The cry came again

Equality Modified

As for equality, "it is a fine thing at certain levels and in cer- tain circumstances. But, if men are equal before death and before God, only a civilised society can grant them liberty before the law and offer them equal opportuni- ties in life. Equality must be bound up with a rational scale of function and of merit. of authority based on differences

"Fraternity, too, is a magnificent

means for

he ideal, but in the condition into he which we have now fallen the a boat approaching. At only true fraternity is that of the the sound of a volce he drop-natural groups-the family, the ped Into the bottom

the city, the Motherland. As A boat.

promoting universal In English: "Hullo, who are progress, the class struggle is an absurd conception which leads to milkman, The

Cyril John

you?" It was a British boat on the national downfall and death Parker, accepted and the youths

along through civil or international asked him to go down an air raid lookout for stray soldiers

The officer was taken war. shelter. As he sat down lie was the coast. hit on the jaw and head.

on board and brought to Dover,

Recovering, he found that his legs were tired with handker. chicfe and ties and that, he had a gag in his mouth. His wallet containing £21 128, 21⁄2d. was missing.

sentenced

MR. QUO TAI-CHI

SEES MR. EDEN

"We must therefore tell our children that, though, masters and men may sometimes have inter- ests which clash, the general in- terest of their "occupation is para- mount- and it in its 'turn is sub- ject to the interests of production taken as a whole, which the State and above must direct, outside the 'corporations' concerned, ac- cording to the domestic and for- eign markets."

The story was told at Dartford, Ken, by Detective-Sergeant Duff when William George, Edwards, twenty, of Swanbridge Road. Mr. Qua Tai-chi, Chinese Am- Bexleyheath, and George Arthur bassador to Britain, called on Mr. Chapman, nineteen, of Victoria Anthony Eden, Secretary for For All this, of course, postulates a Street, Upper Belvedere, Kent, eign Affairs, yesterday afternoon, strong and wise. Government arts- were each

one for the first time since Mr. Eden's ing in some way from ""the con- to mouth's hard labour for the theft resumption of office as Foreign dition into which we have now of the wallat; ·

Secretary

az fallen!! But the authority of Mar Detective. Sergeant Duff andA Apart from renewing personal thal Petain is a precarious one. they had been sleeping in air raid and official, contacts; it la unders| Even in the occupied zona hópas shelters for the past month. Chap-stood that they discussed various are now being placed elsewhere, man was also sentenced to one questions affecting the coinmon and La France au Travail (Paris) month's hard labour to run con- interests of China and Britain in finds it focessary to threater those secutively, for stenling a cycle the Far East and the Pacific, who refuse to believe that all l

yhnath" car par Central Newa

lost.

women were offering their

after making up parties among Mr. Morrison added that pre-themselves. Reuter.

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