Lot 3718

Description

New Zealand Memorial Cross, (GVIR) with original neck ribbon. 8153 Lt. F.Vernon. Impressed. Good extremely fine.

Lieutenant Fane Vernon, clerk, Christchurch; 20 Canto, 2nd NZEF; first known rank, Lance Corporal; last unit served, 23 Infy Bn; WIA 03Aug1942; KIA in Western Desert, 23Oct1942 in the Battle of El Alamein; buried El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt. Lt Fane Vernon was appointed 2 i/c of A Coy, 23 Bn on the eve of the Battle of Alamein. After dusk on the night of 23 October the 8th Army was busy organising into formations. At 8pm 23 Bn moved to its formimg-up place. The men were addressed by Brig Kippenberger who told them they were privileged men to be participating in this first great Allied offensive. The men of the 23rd replied ’We won’t let you down, Sir’, ’The 23rd will do it, Sir’. The battalion stepped off from the start line at 9.30pm, ten minutes before the guns began counter-battery tasks. The battle began and the Allies engaged the Germans and Italians. B and C Companies were in the thick of it and twelve hours later, A Coy hooked up with them. A Coy had come up against strong opposition as there were more enemy posts on their front than elsewhere. They came up against a company strongpoint in and behind the first minefield. This caused a temporary hold up and in the attack on the machine gun posts the Coy OC Capt Pat Lynch headed the attack only to be hit by a full burst of machine gun fire and killed. The attack pressed on and the strongpoint was taken. The Coy 2 i/c, Lt Fane Vernon was severely wounded during the assault and he also died. Together with research including small photos of Lt Vernon cut out from published articles and copy of some pages from a history book in which Lt Vernon is mentioned three times.