view raw text
l I I ] • 1 1 I j I 1 Lt.Col. Thomas Hitchcock j Is Killed in Plane Crash ; Family Informed of Death on Wednesday at Salisbury, Eng. NEW YORK. N. Y.. April 20— Lt. Col.] Thomas Hitchcock, 44. one of the most I famous men ever to straddle a horse, and j J prominent in racing, died Wednesday in aj I P-51 training plane crash at Salisbury, J England, according to word received here I by his family from U. S. Ambassador John G. Winant. j Hitchcock, the worlds greatest poloist of j 1 j j about a decade ago, was a flying hero of two world wars. In the first world war, he was rejected at 17 by the U. S. Air Force because of his youth but went to France and joined the famous LaFayette Escadrille in which he became a fighter pilot and brought down several German planes. He was shot down behind the German lines, wounded badly, and captured. Later he escaped and returned to France, walking almost 100 miles in spite of a serious hip injury. Then he joined the American Air Force as a Lieutenant. Thus did father and son become the oldest and the youngest pilots in the U. S. Air Force as Thomas Hitchcock, Sr., 57, then was a major in the U. S. Signal Corps. The elder Hitchcock, now dead, also was a poloist, but gained greater fame as a developer of polo mounts J and steeplechasers. He raised horses both at his Westbury, L. I., place and at his farm near Aiken, S. C. ; j Col. Hitchcocks mother, known as "thej I mother of American polo." was an ardent , horsewoman all her life, coached her j ! famous son and others of the Meadowbrook Pole Team, and died in 1934 at the age of | j I 67 as a result of an injury suffered a few, months previously in a fall from a horse. j | Col. Hitchcock leaves a widow, the for- mer Margaret Mellon, grandniece of the late Andrew W. Mellon, former secretary of the Treasury; two daughters, Louise and Peggy; twin sons. Thomas III., and William; a brother, Francis: and a sister, Mrs. j J. Averell Clark, of Washington.
