Captain Malcolm McGregor

Malcolm ‘Mad Mac’ McGregor, No. 85 Squadron RAF, photographed beside his Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5a in 1918.

Born in Hunterville, McGregor joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 after training at the New Zealand Flying School in Auckland. He was credited with six aircraft destroyed and a balloon (shared) as well as four sent down ‘out of control’; his wartime career is immortalised in the 1937 book Mac’s Memoirs. McGregor died in a civil aircraft accident at Wellington in 1936. Flown by many of the top British aces, the fast and sturdy SE.5a provided an excellent gun platform, especially in a dive, and was able to hold its own with most German fighters of 1917-18.

• Read Malcolm McGregor's biography here