ESCAPED DEATH
IN 8000 FT CRASH
LUCK OF AN AIRMAN O.C. SYDNEY, Dec. 28. When his Hurricane fighter fell from 8000 ft, Flight-Lieutenant Colin Leagh Murray, of Devonport, Tasmania, was given up for dead because his Hurricane hit the ground at 400 miles an hour. It struck a ditch and ran across several fields, smashing through fences. It lifted a kitchen off a house and dragged it along. There were bits of aircraft scattered along the 800 yards trail of wreckage. The engine was buried beneath a main road.
"Nobody," states the Department of Air, "can explain why Murray was still alive when found. Doctors inserted 187 stitches in his wounds and he recovered consciousness two and a half weeks later. He was out of hospital five months afterwards."
Flight-Lieutenant Murray, who survived to take part in another 100 operational sorties, is now flying with an R.A.F. Second Tactical Air Force Photographic Reconnaissance Spitfire Squadron operating from the Continent.
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Bibliographic details
Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 2, 3 January 1945, Page 4
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159ESCAPED DEATH Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 2, 3 January 1945, Page 4
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