GREAT AIRMAN'S LIFE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 151, 14 July 1937, Page 8

GREAT AIRMAN'S LIFE

Twenty Years oi Flying History "MACS MEM0IRS" How many people know that on flyiag perforxnance McGregor and Walker, New Zealand entrants in the Melbourne Centenary Air Race, were the reakwinners of the handicap section and that only a misunderstandig robbed them of the prize-money? The story is told in "Mac's Memoars," by G. H. Cunningham. In the handicap section of tho race there were twenty-four eheeking points where tiine spent on the ground did not count as flying time. One of these was Cloneurry. Flying from Newcastle Water® to Cloncurry, the New Zealandere xan into a dense dust storm. When they were over Brunette Downs cattlo station, the conditions were so bad that McGregor decided to land. He was nnaware that it was permissible to return to Newcastlo Waters and stay there .until the storm cleared without increasing his flying time. The airmen spent fifteen hours at Brunette Downs, and this counted as flying time. Fifteen hours off iheir net time for the race would have giiven them a little over 67^ hours. The wianers of the handicap section, which carried a prize of £2000, were Parinentier and Moll5 whose net time was 76 hours 38min. 12sec. As it was, they finished fourtli in the handicap section, wanning no prize, but breaking a number of light aeroplane records and putting up a performance which was the admiration not only of New Zealand but of the world in general. Participation in this, the greatest of all air races, was merely an incddent in the career of Squadron-Leader M. 0. McGregor, D.F.C., who died as the result of a flying accident at the Eongotai Aerodrome, Wellington, on February .19, 1936. Serving a Triple Purpose. Mr Cunningham has written au excellent book which eerves a triple purpose — it is a memorial to New Zealand 's greatest airman, a means of raising funds towards the support of SquadronLeader McGregor 's wife and' children4, and a record of an exeitiqg life. McGregor learned to iiy at the Kohimarama Flying School in 1916, and# after advanced training in England, went to France in April, 1917, to join No. 54 Squadron. With his daring and his outstanding skill as a pilot, it was not long before he was thoroughly at home in the desperate game of life and death among the clouds. McGregor 'e most thrilling wartimo experiences camg with his transfer to the famous No. 85 Squadron. There he served with such well-known aces as Major Bishop, Major Caldwell, Elliot ' White Springs (author of " Wai' Birds,,) and, greatest of all, Major Mannock, V.C., D.S.O., M.C. Another New Zealander, Lieutenant Inglis, was with Mannock when the Major crashed and Inglis eircled above the wreck before going baek to report the melancholy news. When the Armistice was eigned, McGregor, who by this time had something like fifteen enemy machines to his credit, and had been awarded the. D.F.C. for great gallantry dur.ing an ongagement between six British machines and a similar number of the enemy, found an interesting occupation in ferrying captured German machines from Brussels into Allied territory. Returning home in 1919, McGregor took up farming, breaking the monotony by motor-cycle raeing. It wa3not long before he was again flying, Hamilton Airways, one of the pioneer commercial aviation enterprises in New Zealand, being hds first venture. Then came Cadbury's business service, Air Travel, - Ltd., private barnstorming, air mail flights, and next the security of a post as pilot instruetor with the Manawatu Aero Club. It was this club that entered him and Mr. H. C. Walker for the Centenary Air Eace. That brief but important episode over, McGregor fonnd his greatest sphere of usefulness as service manager for Union Airways. He played an immensely important part in the organisation of ' the Dunedin-Palraerston North trunk line, and was still with the eompany when he met his death. It is a tragedy that such a man, surviving the risks of wartime flying and such an experienee as the EnglandMelbourne Tace, should have been killed by so simple an accident. That accident robbed New Zealand of her foremost pilot and removed from his familiar sphere the man who did so much to develop commercial flying witliin his native land. "Mac's Memoirs, ' ' by G. H. Cunningham (A. H. and A. W. Eeed, Duuedin; 7/6.)