Thanks for the accident report Megan. I was unaware of the details before you wrote your post. Poor old George.
Re his RAAF Reservist status in Darwin in early 1953. All I recall was the RAAF accepted his flying qualifications. He turned up at Darwin wearing a current RAAF issue flying suit. We were informed he had the approval to fly with us as an observer and thats what we did. Because he was so very keen and was so proud of his status as a Reservist, gave him some flying in the Lincoln, albet keeping an eye on him as rumour had it he was very rough on the controls when given straight and level supervision.
Over the months I spent at Darwin on SAR duties, I got to know George well and had coffee with he and his wife on numerous occasions. I forget the name of his wife but she made beautiful black coffee.
George was a Public Works surveyor I think - which probably why the RAAF accepted him as a Reservist.
However I saw in the accident report his surname was shown as Petru. We knew him as George Truscott because we heard he had changed his name in honour of the ace "Bluey Truscott"
Seems we must have made a mistake as Petru stayed his correct surname.
We kept in touch after he left Darwin and went south. .