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New Zealand Engineers, Middle East

Act Of Gallantry

Act Of Gallantry

On July 1st 1943 an aircraft crashed and burst into flames. No. 12887 Sapper O. N. Stokes5 and No. 35563 Sapper B. Leydon,6 14 Forestry Company, New Zealand Engineers, showing complete disregard for their own personal safety, immediately ran towards the aircraft and, in spite of exploding ammunition, burst petrol tanks and flames, made a gallant effort to rescue the crew.

The G.O.C.-in-C. wishes that a record of this act be made in the documents of Sappers Stokes and Leydon.

There was not a great deal of cutting done in August because of cleaning up and reorganisation. Langrish and Woolmer were short of labour and Arundel had trouble with large logs that had to be blasted open, and with dry logs requiring the frequent changing of saws. Fifteenth Company's troubles came to an abrupt end on 30 August when a telephone message ordered the Company to prepare for embarkation with 11 Company, whose sailing date had been altered to 18 September.

The Company ceased operations on 2 September with a tally of 3888 cubic feet of sawn timber, bringing the grand total of sawn timber produced by the New Zealand Forestry Group in the United Kingdom to 3,255,339 cubic feet.

New Zealand bushmen had been felling timber in the south and west of England for three years. During that time the output of the Group was consistently higher than that of like formations from Canada, Australia, Newfoundland and the United Kingdom. As with the sappers of the other non-divisional units, the Kiwi bushman stood in no man's shadow.