WELLINGTON PILOT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1943, Page 4

WELLINGTON PILOT

BAGS THIRD GERMAN PLANE. ENCOUNTER OVER THE SEA. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, March 1. A New Zealander, F. Murphy, of Wellington, shot down his third German for the second New Zealand fighter squadron and has been commissioned a pilot officer. The German was a Junkers 88, which brought the squadron’s total score up to ten. Murphy and Sergeant R. Fitzgibbon, of Culverden. were completing the last patrol of the day over the sea when in a fading light they sighted the aircraft. It began firing at them at a range of 700 yards, one bullet hitting Murphy’s port wing. He returned the flip and after a chase of several miles the Junkers starboard engine caught fire, then the port engine. The plane bounced along the sea on fire from wingtip to wingtip, burned furiously for a short time and then sank. Flight Lieutenant Harvey Sweetman, of Mission Bay, and Flight Sergeant L. Walker, of New Plymouth, recently damaged two Focke Wulf 190 s. New arrivals to the squadron are Flying Officer A. A. Brown, of Rotorua; Pilot Officer J. R. Cullen, of Waihi; Flight Sergeant J. A. Froggatt, of Dunedin, and Sergeant D. Bennett, of Christchurch.