AIRMAN'S DEATH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 93, 27 July 1943, Page 3

AIRMAN'S DEATH

SQUAD„LDR. TRUSCOTT, DFC"HE WASN'T SIIOX DOWN" On a bench where n flng was'flying at half-mast, n group of sadfaced. airmen stared out to sea. They were looking towards the .spot where the late Squadron-Leader "Bluey" Truscott, D.F.C. and bar. had crashed with his Ivittyhawk into the ocean. The plane was noticed cruising dangerously low over the water, and I lien hit, the surface of the calm sea. A man who saw the crash said: "I realised how dangerously close to the water .Bluey was flying when I saw a lish jumping in front of the nose of his plane. Then his. plane dived, and after the impact It saw the propeller lly straight, oil in front. The plane burst into llames and turned over. The wings crumpled up and smoke clouded it." Members of Truscott's squadron watchcd. the search from the beach, and someone muttered: "He wasn't shot down, anyway." Truscott's body was recovered from the sea the same night. His neck had been broken by the crash, and death must have bcc.n mercifully sudden. Apart from leg injuries lie was unmarked. This was surprising, considering the mangled mass of Avreckage that had once been his plane. True to Air Force tradition, Truscott's death was commemorated by u llight by a squadron of planes. In Melbourne, his home and the scene of his football triumphs, they are dedicating a ward, in a Children's Hospital to his memory.