SOLDIER ATHLETES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24171, 13 January 1942, Page 2

SOLDIER ATHLETES

LEAGUE FOOTBALLER KILLED Gunner Lawrence D. Mills, who has been reported killed in action, is well known in Rugby League circles. He graduated from the Richmond schoolboy's team through the Richmond Club's various grades to seniors and then on to the Auckland representative side. He displayed such brilliant form as a wing-threequarter that he was selected at the age of 20 years for the New Zealand team to tour England in 1939. This tour was abandoned after the playing of the first couple of matches. Gunner Mills left with the Third Echelon, and his only brother, Ray. departed with an earlier draft Former Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay Rugby representative. Sergeant R. R Devine has been reported killed in action overseas. A member of a family well known in the Wairarapa, he represented that province for several seasons before transferring to Hastings, where he became a conspicuous figure with the High School Old Boys' senior fifteen, and quickly earned promotion to the Hawke's Bay side. An inside back, Devine, who played in the 1935 All Black trials, was, particularly in his Wairarapa days, a fine footballer. He was very clever on attack, and exceptionally sound on defence. Pilot-Officer Eric Magor, a prominent Australian weight-lifter, was recently reported missing from operations in the Western Desert. Magor was Australian and New Zealand light-heavy-weight weight-lifting champion before he entered the Air Force, and he still holds the British Empire record of 201 l /ilb for a one-hand jerk Official record figures show him as the strongest man in Australia and New Zealand with the exception of Ancklander Harold Cleghorn, who is at least two stone heavier. Magor is also an accomplished wrestler, tumbler and gymnast.