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R.A.F. 42759 Pilot Officer Thomas Russell MURFITT.
Parents: Mr. and Mrs. E.E. Murfitt of Te Hana, NORTH AUCKLAND.
Widow: Mrs. T.R. Murfitt of LONDON.

Thomas Murfitt was born at Waiuku on the 15th December 1915 and received his secondary education at the Seddon Memorial Technical College where he passed the matriculation examination in 1931. Subsequently he sat for and passed his Marine Engineering Certificates. The sports in which he took part were football, cricket, boxing, wrestling and rowing. He was employed as an engineering apprentice by George Fraser and Sons Limited of Auckland. In June 1938 he applied for a Short Service Commission in the Royal Air Force and on being provisionally selected embarked on the "Rimutaka" at Lyttleton on the 27th June 1939 to proceed to the United Kingdom.

On arriving in England, Pilot Officer Murfitt reported to Air Ministry where he was confirmed in his appointment to a Short Service commission as a pilot officer for four years from the 8th August 1939 and was instructed to proceed on that day to No. 18 Elementary Reserve Flying Training School, Gatwick, Surrey, to commence his flying training. This was succeeded in October by a short course in service procedure with No. 3 Initial Training Wing, Uxbridge, Middlesex, at the conclusion of which he was posted on the 21st October to No. 3 Service Flying School, South Cerney, Gloucestershire. It was while he was here on the 31st January 1940 that he was awarded his Flying Badge. Leaving the Flying Training School on the 26th April 1940, Pilot Officer Murfitt was posted to No. 10 Operational Training Unit, Abingdon, Berkshire, to crew-up and complete his training on Whitley bombers prior to being posted on the 29th June 1940 to No. 102 Squadron then at Driffield, Yorkshire, but later moving to Leeming also in Yorkshire, and still later to Prestwick, Ayrshire. With this squadron he commenced operational flying taking part in nine operational flights. These operations comprised attacks on Kiel, Emden, Pederborn, Mannheim, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Dessau all in Germany and Milan in Italy. At the conclusion