AIRMAN’S DEATH

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 32, Issue 3290, 19 July 1943, Page 3

AIRMAN’S DEATH

SQUAD.-LDR. TRUSCOTT, D.F.C. j “HE WASN’T SHOT DOWN” ! I I On a beach where a flag was flying I at half-mast, a group of sad-faced j airmen stared out to sea. | I They were looking towards the spot where the late Squadron-Leader “Bluey” Truscott, D.F.C. and bar, had crashed with his Kittyhawk into the ocean. ‘

The plane was noticed cruising dan gerously low over the water, and thei hit the surface of the calm sea. A man who saw the crash said: C realised how dangerously close to tin water Bluey was flying when I san a fish jumping in front of the -wsf of his plane. Then his plane dived and after the impact I saw the pro- ' peller fly straight off in.front. The plane burst into flames and turned over. The wings crumpled up and smoke clouded it.” Members of Truscott’s squadron watched 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 been mercifully sudden. Apart from leg injuries he was unmarked. This was surprising, considering the mangled mass of wreckage that had once been his plane. True to Air Force tradition, This* cott’s death was commemorated by a flight 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. ’