Flying accident

After training in Egypt, Tom Skeyhill fought as a regimental signaller of the second (Victorian) Infantry Brigade of the Australian armed forces at Gallipoli from April 25, 1915, to May 8, when a shell explosion blinded him during an advance at Cape Helles. He was hospitalized at Al-Hayat, Helouin, Egypt, and then at the Base Hospital in Melbourne.

Born on June 9, 1922, in Shanghai, the son of American missionaries (John Gillespie Magee and Faith Emmeline Backhouse), John Gillespie Magee Jr. received his education at the American School, Nanking (1929-31), St. Clare's near Walmer, Kent (1931-35), Rugby School (1935-39), and Avon Old Farms School, near Hartford, Connecticut (1939-40).