Kiwi Medals

This is a wonderful New Zealand 3rd Division group to a courageous young man, sadly KIA endeavouring to save others under terrible conditions. 2nd Lieutenant Colin David Griffiths was a 24 year old ex-shop assistant from Timaru, New Zealand who was killed in action at Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands on the 2nd of October 1943.

He lost his life during a third attempt at rescuing a cut-off patrol from the Japanese. Swimming a line ashore to the party, consisting of a number of wounded, sharks had to be held off by tommy-gun fire. Griffiths was killed in the water, along with almost everyone else in the rescue party, by heavy Japanese small arms fire. To be clear here, this was Griffiths third attempt and the second that day to reach the beach.

Colin David Griffiths

Colin’s grave marker at Bourail New Zealand War Cemetery, New Caledonia

This entry was posted on June 3, 2014 at 10:51 PM and is filed under 1939-1945 Service Medals, Groups with tags Empire of Japan, Groups, New Zealand, Pacific Campaign, Solomon Islands, WW2. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.