Raygun,
Thank you for the information. Its good to know that he returned to Australia alive. The world doesn't have enough men of his caliber. Its too bad that the holster and the Luger were separated from the stock. It seems that the rig should have been placed in an Australian museum alone with a picture and some other memorabilia to remind others of this brave soul, who was a brave man among brave men.
Not long ago, I did some cabinet work for a British lady. I had the pleasure of briefly meeting this gentleman before he died of a stroke. While at her home, I noticed some medals in a picture frame. It seems that these were awards given by the French and the British governments to this ladies husband and his father for bravery in their respective wars. She didn't know what they did to be awarded such medals. (A sad commentary regarding this woman). But she did know that there are two pictures of her husband in a museum in Britain. One of them is of her husband shaking hands with Winston Churchill and another of him sitting on a tank that he commanded in North Africa watching some German tanks burning off in a distance. There isn't a name on these pictures identifying him, but he did point them out to his wife on one of their visits to the UK.
Since they had no children or close in-laws, she planned to give the medals to an auction house to be sold off. I had the same hollow feelings then in my stomach that I now have for my artillery stock. Soon, the memories and achievements of these remarkable men will vanish. What is it that President Bush said? "The unmarked graves of unknown men in forgotten wars...".
Sometimes not so big, Norm
