Captain David Abols DCM

Dave Abols joined the British Army in 1975, initially serving with 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment (2 PARA).

By the start of the Falklands Campaign in 1982 he was serving as a Corporal in A Company (A Coy), 2 PARA, and fought with great bravery at the Battle of Goose Green.

A Coy came under heavy fire as it attacked well defended Argentine positions on Darwin Hill which overlooked the advancing Paras.

Abols and Cpl Prior, without regard to their own safety, exposed themselves to heavy fire to recover Pte Kirkwood who was shot in the leg during the battle.

Similarly, Abols and Prior risked their lives to bring Pte Worrall back to safety after he was wounded in open ground about 30 metres away from their positions. It took them 30 minutes to drag the wounded paratrooper through smouldering gorse under sniper and machine gun fire. Tragically, Cpl Prior was shot and killed a short distance from the relative safety of the Paras' positions behind an earth bank.

Later in the battle 2 PARA's Commanding Officer, Lt Col H Jones, was killed after moving into a forward position with A Coy and attempting to mount an assault on the Argentine machine gun bunkers in an effort to break the deadlock.

In the meantime, Abols had worked himself forward with a 66 Light Anti Armour Weapon (LAW), an American designed rocket. Priming the LAW while lying down, he jumped to his feet in a hail of machine gun fire and fired it, scoring a direct hit on the command bunker for the Argentine machine gun positions on the ridge.

Abols was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for this outstanding act of bravery, which was a decisive factor in the capture of the Argentine positions on Darwin Hill.

After the Falklands, Abols completed further tours of Northern Ireland with 2 and 3 PARA and two tours of Belize. He also deployed to Iraq on Op Telic 3.

Abols joined the Australian Army in 2005, serving as a Quartermaster Captain and is a member of the Airborne Forces Association Western Australia.