Brendan Eamon Fitzpatrick
"Paddy" Finucane

London, Nov, 12, 1941 - (CP) - When the war is over, the ordered, unexciting life of a bookkeeper will do for one of the R.A.F.’s top-notch fighter pilots—Flight Lieutenant Brendan (Paddy) Finucane. The 21-year-old Irishman, who already has been through enough excitement to last him a lifetime, revealed his unpretentious ambition in a broadcast.
He is credited with shooting down twenty-three enemy planes and holds the Distinguished Flying Cross and two bars and the Distinguished Service Order.
"I like a job with figures — accountancy or auditing," Paddy explained. "Perhaps that doesn't sound much like a fighter pilot. But pilots are perfectly normal people." He told of the excitement and nervous tension of air fighting. "Before going off on a trip, I usually have a funny feeling in my 'tummy', but once I'm in my aircraft everything is fine. The brain is working fast, and if the enemy is met it seems to work like a clock-work motor. You don't have time to feel anything.
"I have come back from a sweep to find my shirt and tunic wet through with perspiration. Our chaps sometimes find that they can't sleep.
"You come back from a show and find it very hard to remember what happened. Maybe you have a clear impression of three or four incidents which stand out like illuminated lantern slides in the mind's eye. Perhaps a picture of two ME's belting down on your tail. Perhaps another picture of your cannon shells striking at the belly of an ME and the aircraft spraying debris around. But for the life of you, you can't remember what you did. "Later when you have turned in and sleep is stealing over you, some tiny link in the forgotten chain of events comes back. Instantly you are fully aware and then the whole story of the operation pieces itself together and you lie there reliving the combat. The reason is simply that every thing happens so, quickly in the air that you crowd a tremendous amount of thinking; action and emotion into a very short space of time, and you suffer afterward from mental indigestion."
Paddy told how a few days' leave works wonders for a tired pilot,
" The other week, I was feeling a little jaded. Then my leave—seven days—came around. I came back bursting with energy. On my first flight after getting back, I shot down three ME's in one engagement, and the next day bagged two more!"
Paddy’s, flying mates are Australians and they've made such an impression on him that he hopes to go to Australia after the war.
"Australia and auditing books," he said.

Bluey Truscott, Paddy Finucane & [I recognize the face, can't place the name - anyone?] when Paddy was with the Aussies. photo courtesy of Dave Carling

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1942

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Paddy Down

Londoners sometimes see him on his infrequent play nights, striding through the restaurants and bars with an air of careless majesty. There, the onlooker instantly knows, is somebody. He IS somebody: Brendan ("Paddy") Finucane, Irish leader of Australia's famous No. 452 Fighter Squadron.
To 21-year-old Squadron Leader Finucane's credit -up to last week- were 25 German planes shot down, scores of fighter-bomber attacks on Nazi shipping in the Channel and on Nazi targets in Occupied France. He had won the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross with two bars (one bar is a prized distinction). Tall, bush-thatched, ever-smiling, he had many a friend among U.S. pilots in the R.A.F. and U.S. Army observer-flyers in Britain.
Paddy Finucane also had a lot of luck. His plane had been badly shot up only once. He limped for awhile, but not from enemy bullets: he fell off a wall at Croydon, while celebrating an R.A.F. victory.

Last week Squadron Leader Finucane's luck turned.
Two Focke-Wulf s attacked him and Pilot Officer Richard Lewis while they were harrying a Nazi steamer. One of the Focke-Wulfs riddled Finucane's plane and wounded him in the leg and thigh. By radio he ordered Lewis to run for home. Lewis disobeyed. He hovered behind Finucane's tail, fought off repeated Focke-Wulf attacks. One of the Focke-Wulfs crashed into the Channel. Finucane and Lewis scurried back to their home airdrome. Squadron Leader Finucane taxied his fighter up to the line and then collapsed at the controls.

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Non-Stop Spring Offensive Sees industrial Rhineland Pulverized
For Fifth Time; Berlin Admits Offensive "Very Heavy"
With Damage to Industrial Section

London, March 14, 1942 - (BUP) — Giant British bombing planes hurled tons of bombs on industrial western Germany during the night in what appeared to be one of their greatest recent raids, and an air ministry communiqué said that many big fires were left raging as they flew homeward. Continuing a five-day non-stop aerial offensive, the British planes made Cologne their chief target and dropped what the air ministry called a "great weight" of high explosive bombs on vital war-industrial areas.

Berlin Admits Damage
Radio Oslo, German-controlled, was heard broadcasting admissions from Berlin that the raid was very heavy and that "civilian damage" was done.
It was indicated that a formidable fleet of the biggest bombing planes in the Royal Air Force, including Stirlings and Halifaxes and perhaps New Lancasters, had taken part in the attack.
In addition to raiding Germany, the British planes attacked targets in German-occupied territory and laid mines in enemy waters to keep in port warships which might seek to put out for the Norwegian coast or to take to the high seas as commerce raiders.
Four planes were missing after the night's operations.
British planes were almost continuously in action from late yesterday, when strong raids were made on northern France and eight German planes were shot down against a loss of six British planes.
Radio Vichy, heard here, reported; that Paris had a two-hour air raid alert between 10 p.m. and midnight, and observers along the Dover strait heard bombs crashing on the French invasion coast for an hour.
The air ministry revealed that Britain's greatest ace, 21-year-old, "Paddy" Finucane, recently promoted to flight lieutenant, had led the sweep over France yesterday and shot down two German planes in celebration of his first day in action since he was wounded February, 20.
He shot down two Force-Wulf 190's. The first crashed into a railroad embankment. The second was trying to escape a British plane when Finucane in his Spitfire gave it a long burst and sent it in a steep dive to the earth. It was his 26th official victory in addition to four probables and two planes severely damaged.
The British planes were raiding the great Hazebrouck railroad center, 35 miles inland from Calais. One formation of fighters went ahead of the main force and swept the area nearly clear of German planes. Then the bombers went in with their own fighter escort.
"Col. V. Britton," Britain's mystery broadcaster to the Continent, warned Frenchmen last night over the British radio that raids on France would continue.
"Here is official warning of concern to western Europe," he said. "The Royal Air Force, again in a short while, will bomb factories which are giving valuable aid to Nazi Germany. These attacks are necessary.
"Britain cannot allow uninterrupted production of arms and munitions for use by Nazi Germans.
. . . The warning is for you to get away from these factories."

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British Flying Hero

Saturday, March 14, 1942 - The flier who led the British airmen in yesterday's daylight offensive was a flying ace only 21 years old. His name is "Paddy" Finucane. Recently he was promoted to flight-lieutenant He was wounded on Feb. 20 and had just returned to his duties. He shot down two new Focke-Wulf 190's yesterday, registering his 28th victory. Colonel Britton, Britain's broadcaster to the continent, warned French workmen to keep away from factories producing war equipment for Germany, promising that such places would be bombed. The warning was serious. It also was good propaganda.

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HIS MAJESTY CHATS WITH CANADIAN AIRMEN
DURING VISIT TO BRITISH STATIONS

London, April 29, 1942 — (CP Cable) — The King chatted with three Canadian airmen on a visit to fighter command stations in the south of England today. He watched the start and finish of a successful R.A.F. sweep, which took Empire flyers to Dunkerque where they covered bombing attacks.
Inspecting one Spitfire squadron before the takeoff, His Majesty stopped to talk to PO. Frank Jones, of Sherbrooke, Que., a former salesman in Vancouver, and Flight-Lieut. Bill Stock, 20, of Ottawa, only two Canadian members of the squadron.
He asked them if they had been trained in Canada and the number of sweeps they had been on.
The King motored to another aerodrome where half an hour later he saw the Spitfires roaring back. He congratulated a New Zealand flyer, Flight-Sgt. Tony Robson, who told him he had hit a Focke-Wulf 190 which plunged to earth emitting smoke.
Squadron-Ldr. Keith Hodson, 26, of London, Ont., attached to the squadron of famed "Paddy" Finucane which the King also visited, told the King he had "chased a few (enemy planes), but didn't catch anything." Hodson is a veteran of more than 20 sweeps.

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HUN FLIERS CAN'T STOP R.A.F. DRIVE
But Nazis Put Up First Real Battle in Occupied France

London, May 17, 1942 - (AP) - The German Air Force in Occupied France suddenly put up its first real opposition to British fighters in several weeks today and sought, in day-long battles, to smash one of the biggest R.A.F. cross-Channel sweeps of the year.
At least nine Nazi and eight British aircraft were reported destroyed.
So heavy was the R.A.F. attack that observers described the morning bombardment as "one of the heaviest and most continuous series of explosions since the days of Dunkirk."
Marshal Goering's Air Force for the first time in weeks threw its full-scale fighter strength into the attempts to smash back the British attack, reversing sharply the recent German policy of conserving strength while trying to pick off stragglers.
In this connection Goering was reported to have been in Paris recently and it was not definitely known whether he had gone back to Germany. It was possible that one of the objects of his trip to Occupied France was to bolster aerial resistance, with the results shown in Sundays heavy fighting.
Boston bombers, roaring under an umbrella of Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, smashed at Boulogne's much-bombed docks.
The R.A.F. fighter sweeps continued ceaselessly from dawn to dusk despite the German resistance. Some Channel observers said it was the largest scale air combat since the German battleships dashed through Dover Strait with their heavy aerial protection.
It was authoritatively stated that "many combats took place."
Some observers expressed the opinion that Goering had been able to reinforce his Western fighter force or was being driven by popular discontent to try to cut down the recent R.A.F. supremacy over Northern France and the Channel. The detonations on the enemy side of the Channel jolted buildings in England for half an hour during the morning.
Four German Messerschmitts raided a southeast coast town, doing some damage to buildings but causing only a few casualties.
There was no activity over Britain during the night.
It was presumed that bad weather over the Continent again grounded long range planes of the Bomber Command but bright sunlight today made sweeps possible.
Flight Lieutenant Carroll Warren McColpin of Buffalo, N.Y., of the 3rd American Eagle Squadron, shot down one of the two Nazi fighters destroyed in the day's first sweep in the vicinity of Boulogne.
Squadron Leader Brendan (Paddy) Finucane bagged his thirty-second plane of the war on the second sweep. The eagle-eyed Irishman and Wing Commander A. G. Malan now share the R.A.F.'s top-scoring honors.
Hudson bombers blasted at two convoys off the Frisian Islands Friday night, leaving three supply ships burning and four others probably damaged from hits.
Calling the attacks "the most devastating of the week," Air Ministry sources said that five of the British bombers were lost in the fierce anti-aircraft fire that greeted their low-level assault.
Air Ministry sources said Coastal Command planes had hit twenty-eight Axis ships engaged on the supply route to Northern Norway in the last two weeks. These ships take munitions, aircraft spares and other supplies northward, and return with iron ore, pyrites and timber for Germany's Ruhr.

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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.

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Paddy Finucane 16 October 1920 - 15 July 1942

Paddy Finucane, as he was known to the world, had for many moons been an international hero as the result of a series of exploits of such bravery and skill that they earned for him the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross with two bars. Nearly a year ago he had the destruction of twenty-three German planes to his credit, and he had led his squadron of fighting planes on many a raid over Germany to protect the death-dealing bombers.
But Paddy Finucane also enjoyed a special popularity as one of the most picturesque figures among the gallant band of Irish lads I who have been trying in their modest way to make atonement for Eire's neutrality by offering their lives in the cause of freedom. A Dubliner born and bred, he probably inherited with his mother's milk all the bitter prejudices which all too many of his race harbor against Britain, but on the eve of his manhood he had an infinitely clearer discernment about the realities of war than that experienced politician, Mr. de Valera. He saw that there could be no genuine freedom for Eire if Hitler and his allies prevailed and he decided that, young though he was and under no obligation to fight, he must play his part in what he regarded as a battle for Irish freedom.
Like another brave Irish squadron leader, Grattan-Desmonde, who won a posthumous Victoria Cross for leading the attack upon the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, Paddy Finucane died a hero's death before he could see the outcome of the terrible struggle. But they and the rest of their compatriots who are fighting on the British side in larger numbers than most people realize, have helped to redeem the honor of their race which meaner-minded men have been degrading.
Publicity in the Irish papers about death in action of citizens of Eire who fall while serving with the fighting forces of Britain is, we understand, banned by the Government's censorship, but word of the gallant end to Paddy Finucane's high-hearted career will get back to the plain folk of Dublin, who, if they are true to their blood, must still love a brave fighter, and his death may yet be worth many recruits to the British Army and Air Force.
Toronto also is entitled to a certain proud satisfaction that it was one of her own sons, Pilot Officer Allan F. Aikman, who avenged Finucane's death by annihilating the German machine-gun nest from which the fatal shot came.

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Bringing de Valera to Time

14 March 1944 - There seems more than ample justification for the firm request of the Roosevelt Administration, made with the fully and publicly expressed concurrence of the Churchill Ministry that the Government of Mr. de Valera should take appropriate steps to dismiss the diplomatic and consular representatives of Germany and Japan stationed in Eire. The note sent from Washington made out a clear case for immediate compliance with the demand. It would never have been dispatched if there had not been very good grounds for believing that the diplomatic establishments of the two enemy Powers in Eire are being used as bases for a highly organized system of espionage.
The proximity of Northern Ireland and Britain facilitates opportunities for effective espionage, and, despite the assurances of Mr. de Valera that the wireless transmitter of the German Legation in Dublin was safely under the control of his Government, and that all possible precautions against espionage were being taken, it would not be beyond the resources of the German officials in Ireland to devise ways and means of transmitting invaluable information gathered by their spies to the General Staff of the Reichswehr. The latter would know how to make profitable use of it for frustrating the Allies' plans for the invasion of Western Europe, and consequently the presence of these enemy representatives in Eire constitutes a real danger to the lives of our fighting men.
With important military operations pending, its removal is imperative, and, when Mr. de Valera rejected the American demand in a note which evaded the real issue and contained a petulant threat directed toward Britain, the British Government, acting, it is said, at the direct request of Gen. Eisenhower, the Allied Commander-in-Chief, had virtually no alternative but to suspend immediately and indefinitely all travel between Britain and any part of Ireland, except for a few special categories of people. Military considerations of paramount importance dictate this step, and Mr. de Valera is discovering that he can count on no sympathy from any quarter of the United Nations. The Labor Government of Australia, whose Leader, John Curtin, has Irish blood in his veins, rejecting summarily Mr. de Valeras' request that it intervene at Washington on his behalf, has endorsed the American note, and yesterday our own Prime Minister properly gave it his complete approval.
Mr. de Valera makes the specious claim that his policy of neutrality represents the united will of his people and their Parliament. But to thousands of people in Eire it must be a source of continual humiliation. The story of Ireland's own long battle for political freedom is no inglorious tale, and while it was being waged the sympathies of Irishmen were freely bestowed upon other peoples fighting in the same cause; they fought with Garibaldi for the liberation of Italy, and under Bolivar for the emancipation of South America from Spanish misrule. So it is both strange and deplorable to see the Southern Irish, having gained their own freedom, showing such shameful indifference to the preservation of a free world.
Happily the fair name of the Irish race has been at least partially redeemed by the valorous exploits of dead Irish heroes like Capt. Fogerty Fegen of the Jervis Bay and the two fearless airmen, Paddy Finucane and Eugene Esmonde, and by the many thousands of their compatriot's who have enlisted voluntarily in the fighting forces of Britain. It is they, and not the semi-Spaniard, de Valera, who have been true to the best traditions of the Irish people.

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Wing Commander Keith Hodson, D.F.C. and Bar,
Is Back Home on Furlough

Grimsby, Ont., July, 31, 1944 — Veteran of 140 operational flights and former commanding officer of the first Royal Canadian Air Force fighter squadron overseas, Wing-Cmdr. Keith Hodson, D.F.C. and Bar; also the United States D.F.C., is back in Canada on furlough. He arrived at the home of his parents, Brigadier Vernon Hodson and Mrs. Hodson, of Grimsby, on Saturday night. One of Canada's noted airmen, Wing-Cmdr. Hodson was in command of one of the first Canadian wings to go to France following the invasion.

Won't Discuss Exploits
The tall, curly-haired, quiet-spoken wing commander just would not talk about any of his own exploits in the air. About all he would say was: "I was on fighter sweeps over France and escorting United States Fortresses on their early raids — nothing outstanding at all." He didn't tell about leading his squadron in attacks on German trains or about leading the squadron over Dieppe on an escort assignment with American Flying Fortresses, then, after meeting stiff opposition, going out on a second assignment to add five probables to the squadrons score. Nor did he tell about his own fights with Focke-Wulf 190's, Dornier 217's and other enemy aircraft; or about the part he played in the Battle of Britain.
There is one thing he is really proud of and that is the fact that he flew into battle many times alongside the late Paddy Finucane, ace RAF flyer of this war.

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Beurling Ranks Fourth Among European Aces

By FRED BACKHOUSE
London, July 15, 1945 (CP) — Group Captain J. E. (Johnny) Johnson, English-born, former leader of a crack Canadian Spitfire wing, has been officially recognized as "ace of aces" among Allied fighter pilots who fought over Europe.
Final scoring records, compiled by The Canadian Press from figures supplied by the RAF, RCAF, and United States 8th and 9th Air Forces, put this peace-time accountant from the Leicestershire town of Loughborough at the top of the list with 38 German planes destroyed.
Group Capt. Johnson, who so closely identified himself with his otherwise all-Canadian squadron that he wore "Canada" on his shoulder, has often given much of the credit for his success to the Canadians who flew with him. "It's all a combination play" he said. Many of his men themselves became "aces."
Of the first 16 places supplied by the air forces, fourth is held by a Canadian — Flt. Lt. George (Buzz) Beurling, DSO, DFC, DFM and Bar, of Verdun, Que. — and 11 by RAF pilots. For the record, only those with more than 24 "kills" were offered by the three services as their top men.
Official final scores are:
Group Capt. J. E. Johnson (RAF), 38
Group Capt. A. G. Malan (RAF) [no score given –ed]
Sqdn. Ldr. P. Finucane (RAF), 32
Flt. Lt. G. Beurling (RCAF), 31
Wing Cmdr. Stanford Tuck (RAF), 30
Wing Cmdr. J. R. D. Braham (RAF), 29
an anonymous Polish sergeant [Czech pilot Josef Frantisek -ed] (RAF), 28
Wing Cmdr. F. R. Carey (RAF), 28
Lt. Col. F. G. Gabreski (U.S. 8th), 28
Maj. G. E. Preddy (U.S. 8th) [no score given –ed]
Wing Cmdr. C. Caldwell (RAF), 27½
Capt. R. Johnson (U.S. 8th) [no score given –ed]
Flt. Lt. Mungo Park (RAF) [no score given –ed]
Sqdn. Ldr. J. H. Lacey (RAF), 27
Flt. Lt. E. S. Lock (RAF), 25
Lt.-Col. J. C. Meyer (U.S. 8th), 24½
[some of these numbers have been modified since the war – ed]
RCAF fighter pilots in the European war with scores of 15 or more German planes destroyed number six according to overseas headquarters in London. In addition, there were two equally high-scoring Canadians in the RAF, both of whom were killed in that service before they could transfer to the RCAF.
After Beurling they are:
Sqdn. Ldr. H. W. McLeod, DSO, DFC and Bar, of Regina, 22
Flt. Lt. J. T. Caine, DFC, and Bar, of Toronto, 20
Wing Cmdr. Mark H. Brown, DFC and Bar (RAF), of Glenboro, Man., 18
FO. W. L. McKnight, DFC and Bar (RAF), of Calgary, 16½
Wing Cmdr. R. W. McNair, DSO, DFC & two bars, of North Battleford, 16
Wing Cmdr. L. V. Chadburn, DSO and Bar, DFC, of Aurora, Ont., 15
Flt. Lt. Don C. Laubman, DFC and Bar, of Edmonton, 15
The late Wing-Cmdr. Brown is officially credited by the RAF with "at least 18" aircraft destroyed. His score may well have been higher, but uncertainty exists because the records of No. 1 Squadron, RAF, of which he was then commanding officer, were destroyed during the retreat at the time of the collapse of France.

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x 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

The Finucane Rose