I'm not sure what the connection is ... but this mans name was mentioned a lot in our house when I was growing up .... and I've just found him and stories about his exploits ...... I'm going to have to start digging ! For Paddy Finucane Lord of the spacious kingdoms of the air, Thine to twist, to spin, to dive and know The winds of Heaven laughing in thy hair, The slow Earth sleeping patiently below, Thine to be the swordsman of the blood-lit skies, A source of courage to thy comrades’ flight; That thou too now adorneth Paradise Makes far more beautiful the bedlam night. He was too young to die, and yet who dares His spirit’s resurrection to deny? He still with every fighter pilot shares The roar of clawing battle birds on high, And then returns to proud and lovely lairs- A shadow in the shadows of the sky. Michael Cullwick, London, 1943 This Is It, Ace's Farewell As Plane Dives Into Sea London, July 17, 1942 — (AP) — Bidding his comrades farewell with a calm "This is it, chaps," Irish Paddy Finucane, R.A.F. ace, who had 33 German planes to his credit, plunged to his death in the English Channel last Tuesday in the wreckage of his crippled Spitfire, the Air Ministry Announced tonight. A veteran of more than 50 cross-Channel raids and the youngest wing Commander in the R. A. F., Finucane, 21, was leading his squadron during the largest mass-air assault yet, upon Occupied France when a "million-to-one chance" shot from a German machine-gun post hit the radiator of his plane. Unable to gain height, Finucane attempted to set his wounded Spitfire down in the sea but it sank immediately, dragging him down. Before the crash he called out his farewell message over his inter-plane radio. Pilot Officer F. A. Aikman, 23-year-old No. 2 leader of the Wing and a native of Toronto, avenged the Irish ace by smashing the German machine-gun post. Finucane —his given name was Brendan but everybody called him Paddy— was shot up badly once in all his spectacular career before the Germans got him. Last October he spent his twenty-first birthday in the hospital — but the Nazis didn't send him there. Paddy broke a bone in his foot one night while celebrating destruction of two German fighters the day before. It was four months later that he was wounded in a fight over the Channel, but he managed to come home to a perfect landing under the shepherding of a fellow pilot. A native of neutral Eire, Finucane came of a family wrapped up in the British war effort. His father, Thomas, helps build the Spitfires his son flew. One brother, Raymond, is a sergeant in the Bomber Command and another brother, Kelvin, who just turned 13, is planning to join the R.A.F. when he's old enough. Finucane wore the Distinguished Service Order, and the Distinguished Flying Cross – the later with double Bar. He was promoted to Wing Commander last June 30. He achieved fame first as a section leader in R.A.F. Squadron No. 452 largely Australian manned. When legless Douglas Bader bailed out of a wrecked plane and became a prisoner of the Germans, Finucane became Britain's leading ace. Bader's score was fifteen Nazi planes. Paddy Finucane
The youngest Wing Commander the RAF ever had, and probably among the top five highest scoring British Empire aces of WW2
What is additionally impressive is that almost all his claims and shares were agaianst 109s and 190s - in his "lowly" Spit II or Vb. And he received the two Bars to his DFC and his DSO in just two months!
Its been said before how few of the top aces were killed in air-to-air combat. Many were brought down by shots from the ground (Finucane, von Richthofen (almost certainly)) or died in accidents (Marseille, McCudden). Some of those that did die in air-to-air combat were in massively outnumbered (Pattle, Voss) or were hit by freak shots from two-seaters (Kittel, Little) or were caught in traps specially set for them (Gleed, Dallas)
McCudden, Little and Dallas were WW1 aces. (Little and Dallas were Australian - shame on you for not knowing them!!) Kittel was the fourth highest-scoring ace ever, and the highest scorer to fly the FW190
To be fair to those who shotdown Little and Kittle, calling it "freak shots*" is a little unfair to the gunners whose job it was to try do just that. In Kittle's case it was his own fool fault for chasing after a damaged aircraft, and sounds like he was a bit sure of himself. And in Little's case, could one actually argue that he shotdown by a searchlight rather than a gunner? If it hadn't been for being blinded, he probably wouldn't have been picked off. * though in WW2, to pass out successfully in the RAF and RCAF, I think AGs had to get a minimum of 4% hits on the towed targets - so I suppose a succesful hit would be odds on against.
I'll have a book on them for sure but would not have picked them for any money...plus I was thinking the wrong war to begin with. Picked up Michael Lawrinsky's Hard Jacka today as an "easy" way to learn about an Aussie VC that I know next to nothing, no be honest, nothing about. Mind you 500+ pages perhaps might not be "easy"... I know so little about WWI it's not funny.
LITTLE, ROBERT ALEXANDER ( D S O & Bar, D S C & Bar C de G & Star) LITTLE, ROBERT ALEXANDER ( D S O & Bar, D S C & Bar C de G & Star) View attachment 2097 View attachment 2098 View attachment 2100
DALLAS, RODERICK STANLEY (DSO) (DSC & Bar) (C de G) DALLAS, RODERICK STANLEY (DSO) (DSC & Bar) (C de G) I do not have his headstone as yet. View attachment 2101
Somebody on the The Aerodrome Forum took a photo of it spidge !! Roderic Dallas Pernes British cemetery - The Aerodrome Forum
Thanks Annie! I didn't think it had been that long since I was looking around there. Marvellous how things come up. I now have 140 WW1 headstones/memorials to get out of 327.
Good for you !! .... it's a long process I know !! Do you have the boys from Tadcaster ?? Tadcaster-WW1-Memorials.com | Annie
Yes, it was it bit sloppy of me to describe these as freak shots; the thrust of what I was saying was that these men were not defeated by the skill of another fighter pilot. But attacking a two-seater or a bomber was very difficult without putting yourself at risk from return fire, and although the skill of the gunner made a difference there was probably a greater degree of randomness involved in whether the fighter was hit or not. The four per-cent rule you mention shows the expectations of an air-gunners hit rate. As to Kittel becoming overconfident - this was always a danger. Several aces died when they broke their own rules; e.g. Manfred von Richthofen and "Mick" Mannock died when flying low enough to be vulnerable to ground fire when following an enemy down, which they had always told their pupils not to do - though there is a suspicion that both of these were heading for mental breakdowns at the time and possibly didn't care anymore. A WW2 example of this would be Tom McGuire, second-highest scoring USAAF ace, who failed to follow procedure of releasing the drop-tanks from his P38 and was out-manouvred by a Zero as a result. The allegation here is that far from suffering a breakdown, he was intent on raising his score above Richard Bong's and did not want to shorten that mission by dropping his tanks too early. By the way, "acesofWW2.com" puts Finucane as the second highest scoring British ace after Johnson, and the fourth highest-scoring British Empire ace after Pattle, Johnson and Malan (presumably the American author considers being Irish as being less worthy of a separate category to British than South African!)
Heres a book with your name written all over it K !! ... though you probably have it already !! Amazon.com: George Preddy, Top Mustang Ace: Samuel L. Sox Jr.: Books
Thank you Annie. I don't have the book, infact I have very dew books on the USAAF. Mainly it's because I have enough trouble keeping up with the RAF Tis now on my wishlist
Hi Annie, Did you find some Flying Corps lads here? I had a "quick" look through and could not see any. Cheers Geoff
That's been on my list for a while now and is one of those "if I come across it cheapish" type of books. I used to read a lot of USAAF but being in the colonies, it seemed only fair to focus my reading to the Commonwealth...and there's so much of it that the USAAF fell by the wayside. AR, I wouldn't call it sloppy. I appreciate having someone on here who is an afficianado of WWI aviation and I have to admit to being somewhat drawn to it but I balk at having to start all over again so dipping in and out amatuerishly is the best I can manage. Kyt mentioned he was reading an overview of the RFC that was 500 pages long!
And though I am thoroughly enjoying I have to admit to being rather embarrassed by the fact that I hadn't heard of about 80% of the men mentioned. And I've just bought a RFC/RNAS picture book because I had virtually no knowledge about the aircraft mentioned, especially from the early years of the war. And the same about the USAAF and Luftwaffe. But in my defence my primary interest is in the men (and women) who flew, and any knowledge I have gleaned on the aircraft, tactics, units etc of the RAF has been subsidary to that.
