STUNT MAN FOR WAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 230, 25 October 1940, Page 3

STUNT MAN FOR WAR

Nazi bombings of London have prompted Reg Kavanagh, English film stunt man and parachutist, to end abruptly his 15th visit to Australia. He is now in Perth awaiting an opportunity to get to Englancl and join the TLA.F. He lacks neither experience nor nerve. He served with the Repub* lican air force during the Spanish civil war, and has been risking' his life for years crashing 'planes and cars, and.' making,.parachute descents for films. Kavanagh said that he intended while in Australia this time, to attempt the world's delayed parachute jump record, which'a Russian took from him in 1(938, with a jump of 32,000 feet. However, his "plane cracked up, and the attempt was postponed. - "It will probably have to be abandoned now," he said, "although you can never tell what will happen once you are in the air force. "Parachute jumping is just a job —and not a particularly attractive job." , Kavanagh holds the world's record for 1-200 consecutive parachute jumps. He has already tried to Ijoin the R.A.F., but was rejected because he was too old—33—and because he has had almost every bone in his body broken in his career. Now he to pay his own passage back to London, because he has been told the R.A.F. " will accept him. He was to have been married f,n Australia to Miss Joy Mackinnon, of the Switzerland Ice Follies, but the marriage has been postponed "because there's a job to do first."'