LAST MESSAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 July 1942, Page 3

LAST MESSAGE

OF GALLANT AIR ACE WING COMMANDER FINUCANE DROWNED IN CHANNEL. PLANE CRIPPLED BY CHANCE SHOT. (Bv Teles’raph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, July 17. A “million to one chance” shot from a German mhchine-gun on the beach near Point Du Touquet killed Wing Commander Finucane, who had 32 planes to his credit. He held the Distinguished Service Order and the triple Distinguished Flying Cross. Finucane was loading his wing during the largest mass attack of fighters so far carried out against targets in France. He flew low over a machine-gun post when the gunner got in a lucky shot which penetrated the Spitfire’s radiator. Finucane, after attacking the target, turned for home. He was too low to bale out and the engine was firing too slowly for the plane to regain height. Finucane tried a crash-landing in the sea, but instead of the Spitfire staying afloat for a few seconds, it sank like a stone, carrying Finucane with it. The crash must have knocked him senseless, because his comrades circled over the sea for a long time afterward and all they saw was a slowly widening streak of oil on the Channel waters. The station commander listening in to radio-telephone conversations between the Spitfire pilots said: “Paddy did not know he was hit till his number two called to him to tell him. Finucane went on to attack his target. Soon afterward, Paddy said his engine’s temperature was going up and that he was coming out of France. He continued to talk calmly over the radio coming home. His last message —probably as the engine stopped — was: ‘This is it, chaps.’ ”