KILLED IN ACTION
Private advice was received on Tuesday that Captain Charles Thomas Mason, M.C., had been killed in action in Egypt. The news was received with profound regret by his many friends in Queenstown.
Born at Pukerau, Captain Mason began his education at the Longbush school. He completed his primary education at Brydone and later attended the Gore High School. He was an outstanding scholar and he also showed sporting ability. After securing has matriculation he attended Canterbury Training College and he was later a student at the Dunedin Training College. He began his teaching career at Cardrona and later he was stationed at Maitland, Invercargill, Bluff and lastly Queenstown. Captain Mason narrowly escaped being taken a prisoner of war. He was wounded in five places and he succeeded in escaping from Greece with a number of others in a fishing boat. He was awarded the Military Cross in September last for gallant action in the Balkans campaign. During his association with the local school Captain Mason ingratiated himself into the hearts of the scholars and established a strong bond of friendship. His sporting proclivities and an intense human understanding in and out of school left a mark on the children and many adults which will never be effaced from their minds. He was a pal to all. On Wednesday afternoon the schoolmaster, Mr C. Miller, shortly addressed the children at a memorial service and the school flag was flown at half mast out of respect for the deceased soldier. Captain Mason was an enthusiast in both local sport and drama. -Lake Wakatip Mail, 30/7/1942.
Charles Mason enlisted upon declaration of war in September, 1939, and was a Sergeant when he left New Zealand with the 21st Infantry Battalion in 1940. He was awarded the Military Cross for actions during the Army's retreat south through Greece in the face of German armoured forces.. The following is the citation, held in the National Archive of Britain:
"Both at Platamon and Tempe the courage and example of this officer were outstanding. At Platamon 15 April his platoon covered the Pantlemon village. His forward post having been driven in, 2nd Lt Mason led his platoon through the village in the darkness and succeeded in reestablishing the position and inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. Later he led a large fighting patrol drawn from his own and No. 13 platoon and cleared the enemy from another spur, thus completely reestablishing the Company positions. At 0600 hours on 16 April his posts were attacked by a large enemy force which called upon him to surrender. He answered by calling on his men to charge and himself charged and killed the German officer."
The citation also include the crossed-out sentence: "He was last seen at Tempe, covering the withdrawal of the company. He is missing."
The story of the rest of his time in Greece, barely mentioned the the Lake Wakatip Mail story, are not to be found on line. They would probably make a good movie of the 1950s-60s heroic style, spiced with a little colonial language from the Kiwi soldiers.
It seems that Charles Mason, on his return from Greece, was transferred to the 23rd Battalion, where his courage in action is shown in an action during a German attack with tanks and truck-borne infantry in the Fort Capuzzo area in November 1941: Meanwhile the CO had organised other forces to restore the situation. Six Bren carriers under Second-Lieutenant Charlie Mason raced round to the north-west before turning south and coming in on the rear of the attacking enemy and the captured English drivers, who were held in close ranks about 1000 yards west of the transport. The carriers, commanded by Sergeants E. Hobbs and McGregor, attempted to release the prisoners but found they could not halt without coming under fire. MecGregor and his crew took a chance, dismounted and fired their machine guns from the ground, but without attaining their object. Boarding their carrier again, they moved towards a low stone wall behind which enemy infantry were sheltering. As these infantry tried to rejoin some half-tracked vehicles, McGregor and Private J. P. Fitchett opened fire on them and accounted for fifteen or more. At this stage an anti-tank gun fired on their carrier and scored a direct hit, killing McGregor and wounding Fitchett. Corporal Price took his carrier forward in support of McGregor's but it too was knocked out, Price being killed. Two or three light tanks forced the other carriers, which had followed a different route, to retire after they had fired several bursts into enemy transport.
A later paragraph, from December 1941, shows the actions of a courageous and quick thinking officer: In the early afternoon, when the carriers were giving chase to some enemy trucks, they ran on to a lightly sown but well concealed minefield. Actually, Second-Lieutenant Mason had crossed the field in the leading carrier before one of those following was blown up. This carrier went on fire immediately and the three members of its crew, who had been wounded or knocked unconscious, would have had no chance of survival if Charlie Mason had not rushed back and, despite the exploding ammunition, lifted them out.
Fighting in the desert of North Africa was often a confused affair and, one day, Charles Mason's luck ran out: Another 23rd soldier, Private George Ellis, went missing on the night of 11–12 July. A signaller, he left the B Company area to check on communications with D Company. In returning, he either lost his way or was misled by the moving of the companies during the night. He was posted ‘missing’ and remained on the list of missing for nine months, although, in fact, he was killed on the morning of 12 July along with three members of a Bren-carrier crew whose story follows.
Before first light on 12 July, Lieutenant Charles Mason, with a crew of three — Privates P. Rayner, driver, D. A. A. Griffin, gunner, and B. Robson, signaller — set out to contact B Company and then to try to locate Philip's two sections. They saw nothing of B Company nor of the D Company men, but picked up Ellis some distance out from the 23rd. Robson, the only survivor, can best tell what happened next: ‘Just over a slight rise we ran slap-bang into the enemy lines and the next thing I knew we had stopped practically among gun positions and slit trenches. Griffin, our gunner, hopped out with a 38 and the daft idea of taking prisoners. Charlie acted promptly. He signalled the driver quick about turn and shouted urgently to Griffin, “Back in! Quick man”. In a moment we were off. The Italians started to run for their guns and before we had got up speed or could get over the rise plastered us with small arms fire. Griffin was working an MG on the back of the carrier and I worked the bolt of my rifle like a madman but they had too much fire for us. Griffin got one through the head. George Ellis had one leg all but shot off below the knee. I got hit in the thigh of my right leg. Charlie called for more speed. But the engine choked and stopped. Not fifty yards away to our right sat a Jerry Mark IV tank — its fire had stopped the carrier. Another tank also opened up on us.’
PAGE 166The odds were too great. Mason, Rayner and Griffin were killed. Ellis was shot by an Italian and Robson was taken prisoner. When the carrier was located nearly a week later, it was in a burnt-out condition and, in the absence of identification discs, the bodies could not be identified. None of the burial party had any idea that Ellis had been picked up, and, consequently, Mason and his men were reported killed in action. Some nine months later, word came back from an Italian prisoner-of-war camp that Robson was alive and that the ‘missing’ Ellis had been killed under the circumstances described.
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