DUNEDIN AIRMAN’S DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 23680, 13 September 1940, Page 5

DUNEDIN AIRMAN’S DEATH

PILOT OFFICER M. MACASSEY KILLED 4IN ACTIVE SERVICE Pilot-officer Michael 10. B. Macassey, of the lloyal Air Force, wlio was killed on active service on August 28, was the .younger son ot Air and Airs J. Fi. Maeassey, ot St. Clair. He was 2.1 .years ot age and was educated at the St. Clair School and the Otago Boys’ High School, being a member of the 0.8.H.5. shooting team that won the Earl lloberts’s Shield in I!Wd.

On leaving school Pilot-officer Macastiey engaged in sheep farming with his brother in Southland, where he joined the Southland Aero Club and gained his A license in 15),‘17. In Feb-

ruary, 1939, he sailed for England to join the Royal Air Force. After passing through the hying training schools at Caine, near Yatesbnry, Uxbridge, and Sealand, in Chester, he received his “ wings ” in August, 1939. Ho then proceeded to Aldergrove, Northern Ireland, for patrol duty over the Irish Sea, as -well as experience in bombing operations. He was subsequently stationed at Old Sarum, Salisbury, doing Army cooperation work, and thence to Andover, Hants, where he was engaged in reconnaissance and Army co-operation work, piloting a Lysander bombing plane. At the beginning of February this year he went to France as a pilot of the Thirteenth Squadron of the iloyal Air Force, and was there till the evacuation from that country. His recreations were football, swimming, shooting and deer stulking. He killed his first stag when he was 14years of age, and shot "over 100 red deer.