COBBER KAIN DEAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1940, Page 4

COBBER KAIN DEAD

N.Z. ACE AIR PILOT RESULT OF AN ACCIDENT. OUTSTANDING WAR RECORD. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. New Zealand’s ace war pilot, Flying Officer Edgar James (“Cobber”) Kain, D.F.C., is dead. Advice to this effect has been received by his father, Mr R. G. Kain, Wadestown, Wellington, in a cable from the Air Ministry, which states that death was the result of an aircraft accident. The profound sympathy of the Air Council is conveyed to Mr and Mrs Kain and family. News of Flying Officer Kain’s death has been received with deep sorrow. Since he first flashed into the news early in November as the result of a brilliant single-handed action in which he brought down a Dornier reconnaissance plane, Flying Officer Kain has become a figure symbolic of the courage and daring with which the successors of the Anzacs of 1914-18 have taken up arms in defence- of freedom and democracy. Recently his record of having shot down 40 German planes ranked with the best individual achievements of the R.A.F.

Born in Hastings 22 years ago, Flying Officer Kain was educated at Croydon School, Day’s Bay, Eastbourne, Wellington, and at Christ’s College, Christchurch, where he was a boarder at School House from 1933 till 1935. After leaving he trained at Rongotai Aerodrome, Wellington, under Squadron Leader G. L. Stedman. He completed his training at Wigram Aerodrome. Christchurch, where he took his A licence toward the end of 1936. He left for England shortly afterward with his parents. He qualified for the R.A.F. on arrival, and on December 21 of that year went into training camp at Blackburn. After three months there he was posted to Uxbridge, where he qualified as a pilot officer.