UNUSUAL EVENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1942, Page 4

UNUSUAL EVENT

TEST PLANE DAMAGES BIG NAZI BOMBER PILOT WHO WAS “JUST STOOGING ALONG.” ' BUT SEIZED OPPORTUNITY. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) LONDON, August 4. The Air Ministry announced that Squadron Leader T. B. Fitzgerald, D.F.C., of South Canterbury, who is at present detached from the Fighter Command as test pilot for the Hawker Aircraft Company, makers of the Hurricane, is the hero of one of the war’s most unusual interceptions.

Piloting an old Hurricane, which was used in the Battle of Britain, Fitzgerald was engaged on a business-cum-test flight, in the East Midlands, when, from thick mist and cloud, came a whine of bullets from a Dornier 217. Fitzgerald said: “I got a terrific shock. I was just stooging along, as in peace time, at 200 feet. The Dornier was above me. I climbed to 500 feet. My machine-guns had not been used for a long time, but I got in a burst with eight guns at 200 yards and hit the Dornier in the port wing. He climbed into the clouds without returning my fire. I followed and got in a second burst at 400 yards. I should think this is the first time a Hun has been damaged by a test plane.” Fitzgerald, who is 25 years old, is a six-footer. He came to Britain in 1938 and was awarded the D.F.C. in May, 1940, at the Battle of Sedan, when he was a bomber pilot.