Hero in Orders

With today's remembrance of the the end of WW-2, Gorse Fox would like to offer the following... an insignificant moment in 6 years of tragedy and conflict. But it is the individual acts of heroism put together that make us so grateful and so conscious of the debt we owe that generation.

Extract from William Hickey column in the "Daily Express" (Thursday, August 15th 1940):

Hero in Orders

"Lists of those missing from the Lancastria have not yet been issued- 2 months after the sinking; I am sorry that I cannot check, from the War Office or the Red Cross, the name of the hero of the following episode, or if he survived.

Miss J Harding of Bromley, Kent, tells me the story thus:-
"... My brother, an RAF sergeant, was one of the airmen at the bottom of the ship when she was hit. The companionways were crammed with troops, and it seemed as though the men down below were doomed.

A sergeant-major, my brother and several others standing together were approached by an Army chaplain, who quietly told them to put their faith in God and follow him. He led them through the bottom of the ship to some kind of exit in the side, about 6 ft. above the water. Then he made them remove their heavy clothing before they jumped."

The sergeant-major could not swim, so the chaplain took off his own lifebelt and handed it to him with the words that he would not need it, for if God willed he could come through alive.

They jumped, and that was the last my brother saw of the chaplain. The sergeant-major was rescued with my brother... My brother joins with me in the heartfelt prayer that the chaplain was among the rescued."

He was, and went on to be a well loved parish priest, serving his community until his death in 1976. God speed Uncle Teddy!

[File under: Hero,WW2,Lancastria]