ROYAL AIR FORCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 50, 27 August 1940, Page 11

ROYAL AIR FORCE

LIVES FOR COUNTRY

TWO NEW ZEALAND PILOTS

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day,

Reports of the deaths of two Christchurch pilots in the Royal Air Force have been received—Pilot Officer Ronald Stanley Magee, aged 25, son of Mrs. C. M. Magee, of Gracefield Avenue, and Sergeant Pilot Robert Henry Clifford, aged 24, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Clifford, of Worcester Street.

Educated at the Reefton District High School and St. Bede's College, Pilot Officer Magee was a member of the Canterbury Aero Club and the Rongotai Aero Club, where he obtained his A and B licences. After leaving St. Bede's in 1932 he was engaged in surveying. Later he joined the artillery and after receiving training at Trentham was stationed at Fort Dorset for two years. He left Fort Dorset to join the R.N.Z.A.F. in June of last year and passed out from Wigram on January 15 of this year. He was married to Miss Shirley Buchanan, Cashmere Hills, a fortnight before he left for Home.

Sergeant Pilot Clifford was educated at the Cathedral Grammar School and the Timaru Boys' High School. After leaving school he assisted his father in a photography business in Christchurch. Later he joined a legal firm. He received his flying training at Wigram, and passed out on May 28. He had only been in England about six weeks when the news of his death was received here.