GENERAL MEAD MISSING

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23702, 29 July 1942, Page 4

GENERAL MEAD MISSING

AEROPLANE OVERDUE FIVE COMPANIONS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 28. Major-General O. H. Mead has been reported missing during an aircraft flight. Announcing this to-day, the Minister of Defence (the Hon. F. Jones) said that he deeply regretted to announce that General Mead, together with another Army officer and four members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, had been reported missing during an aircraft flight over a sea route. Intensive searches were being carried out in the area where the aircraft was last reported, but, unfortunately, without results so far. The personnel involved, besides General Mead, are: Lieutenant J. C. Leslie, of Kaitara. Flying Officer D. A. Anderson, of Auckland. Pilot Officer D. A. Ibbotson, of Wellington. Sergeant R. H. W. Wybourne, of Waverley. Leading Aircraftsman A. N. Clayton, of Cambridge. General Mead, C.8.E., D.5.0., was, until recently, officer in command of the Southern Military District. He was born at Blenheim in 1892 and educated at Marlborough College. He served in the Great War with the Canterbury Regiment, and held command of the Ist, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions of the Regiment until his return to the Dominion in 1919. He yras twice mentioned in dispatches. He was appointed a captain in the New Zealand Staff Corps in 1919 and was promoted major in 1925. He attended the Staff College at Camberley in 1926. and was attached to the War Office in 1929. For some time he was second member of the New Zealand Army Board, and was appointed officer commanding Northern Military District in 1937, and Adjutant-General in 1939. He came to Christchurch in 1940 as officer commanding Southern Military District.