Tragic Death Of Roy

Hagen

THERE was unusual tragedy in the death of Roy Hagen, a member of the well-known New Caledonia family, who died recently at Noumea, at the early age of 40. He was an attractive youth and was educated at Barker Col lege, Sydney. At that time, he was in the front rank of football players. He had just gone on to the land, in Queensland, when war broke out; and Roy Hagen was among the first to hurry home to the ser vice of Mother France. He was for seven months a member of one of the “sacrifice batteries” before Verdun —that epic of French gallantry—and a week after he left, unhurt, the battery was blown up.

Roy Hagen served the full period of the war; but, unhappily, he came home with gas in his lungs, and that is what killefi him, ultimately. He was for seve ral years a manager of chrome mines in New Caledonia: but he had planned to return to his first love—pastoral life in Queensland —when he contracted fatal pneumonia.

Roy’s brother, Louis Hagen, also died,

ten years after the war, as the result of gas injuries while on active service in France.

Both were brothers of Mr. Nicholas Hagen, of Noumea.