Edgar McCloughry

Air Vice Marshal Edgar James Kingston McCloughry CB, CBE, DSO, DFC and Bar (10 September 1896–15 November 1972) was an Australian World War I fighter pilot and flying ace. He shot down 21 aircraft and military balloons during the war, making him the 6th highest-scoring Australian ace. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar as well as being Mentioned in Dispatches.

He joined the AIF in December 1915, and served as a military engineer in Egypt and France before transferring to an RFC in December 1916. He graduated from there in August 1917 and was posted to the 23rd Squadron of the RFC on the Western Front. He was seriously injured in a crash shortly thereafter, and, after recovering in hospital, was assigned as a flight instructor. He was reassigned again in the summer of 1918 to the AFC. He scored most of his victories there in the last few months of the war.

He left the AFC in August 1919 and pursued a career as an engineer in the UK before joining the RAF in 1922. He served there in a strategy-planning capacity through World War II. He retired from the RAF in 1953 as an Air Vice Marshal. He died in 1972 in Edinburgh.

References

* [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100708b.htm Edgar McCloughry at the Australian Dictionary of Biography]
* [http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/mccloughry.html Edgar McCloughry at the Aerodrome]