BELIEVED KILLED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 75, 30 March 1943, Page 3

BELIEVED KILLED

FAMOUS AUSTRALIAN

AIRMAN

(Rec. 12.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, March 30,

Squadron Leader Keith Truscott, D.F.C. and bar, one of the most famous fighter-pilots of the war. has been reported missing, believed killed. His Kittyhawk plane crashed into the sea off the Australian coast on Sunday, and no trace of it has been found.

It is understood that Squadron Leader Truscott was making feint attacks on the tail of another of our aircraft when the accident occurred. Feint attacks are customary among fighter-pilots, who test their skill whenever the opportunity occurs. Squadron Leader Truscott was 26 years of age, and had 15 German air-

craft to his credit when he returned to Australia from England some months ago. In England he had commanded the First Australian Spitfire Squadron. Only last week he was mentioned in dispatches for gallantry in operations in New Guinea. He was a very close friend of the war's greatest fighter ace, the late Wing Commander Paddy Finucane, of the R.A.F., who was killed last July when his plane crashed in the English Channel. On Truscott's return to Australia shortly before Finucane was killed the Melbourne sportsman Mr. John Wren gave £1000 to be shared between the two men.

Truscott was a brilliant footballer in the game played under Australian rules, and before the war was the idol of Melbourne crowds. He was engaged to a 22-year-old Welsh girl, Margaret Rees, who was to leave soon for Australia.