HOW GALLANT AUSTRALIAN OF FLYING CORPS WON THE VICTORIA CROSS IN EGYPT
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(Associated Press Telegram)
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Sydney, Australia, Aug. 17.—One of the most striking war incidents involving Australians is the deed by which Lieutenant F. H. McNamara of the Australian Flying Corps won the Victoria Cross in Egypt a few months ago. McNamara is 23 years old and a son of the head of the Victorian (war) Wheat Commission. Before the war he was a public school teacher in Victoria. His home is in Caulfield. An army surgeon named MacDonald wrote in a recent graphic letter to his father regarding McNamara's exploit and it's aftermath:
"On Monday last Lieutenant McNamara of the Australian Flying Corps flew out from the aerodrome and later on passed beyond Beershula. Here he came upon the Turkish cavalry. They immediately opened fire. His wings were several times perforated by bullets but he just flew around and dropped his shells. They were shells timed to explode. Usually bombs are carried and they explode only on contact. McNamara dropped four and released a fifth from his bomb vest. It exploded prematurely under his aeroplane. A piece of shrapnel tore its way thru his car and penetrated the body of the machine. It ended by entering his thigh, making a huge ugly wound.
"He immediately dropped two smoke bombs as a signal of distress. But at that minute he saw another airman drop two smoke bombs and hover down thru engine trouble.
"As McNamara said to me, 'I could not let the poor devil stay down there and not try to rescue him.' Well, he descended but as his aeroplane was built for only one the other man had to climb into the space between the planes. All this time the Turks were busy shooting at them. With his extra passenger McNamara tried to ascend. But the leg was terribly painful with the result that the machine swerved and toppled over as it was moving along the ground preliminary to rising. They were prisoners for a certainty unless they managed to make the other machine go.
"They ran over to the other machine and tested the engine. Wonderful to relate it went. So in they climbed and soared into the air, pursued by shrapnel from the Turks. On the way back McNamara nearly fainted several times thru loss of blood and pain but, by putting his head outside into the rushing air, he recovered. It would have been smash and death for both if he had fainted. They arrived back safely. That night McNamara was cheered to the echo. His deed is known all over this part of Egypt. It will be the V. C., of if not the V. C., then something pretty good."
The Waterloo Times-Tribune - Sunday, August 17, 1917
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