The passing of a hero
Tony Gaze — F.A.O. Gaze was an Australian who raced cars often in NZ in the fifties.
A little easy research shows that he was here in NZ, doing the full circuit, in 1954, 55 and 56. I think I stood in an empty coal wagon and watched him win the 1956 Dunedin Road Race in his Ferrari.
But there was much, much more than that to Squadron Leader F. A. O. Gaze DFC with double bar with 11 confirmed kills to his credit as a Spitfire pilot during WW2.
He was shot down over enemy territory, but with the help of the French resistance made his way to Spain and then back to Britain where he got back into the cockpit and continued shooting down the Nazi enemy.
He is credited with being the first to shoot down a German jet powered Me 262 and late in the war switched from Spitfires to the jet Gloster Meteor.
Although an Aussie, he stayed on in Britain for a while after the war and he suggested to the Duke of Gordon that the Goodwood racing track could host motor racing to replace Brooklands.
In 1952 he became the first Australian to compete in a Formula One race when he took part in the Belgian GP in an HWM.
He raced extensively in Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand - he also competed in the 1950 Monte Carlo Rally — in a Walrus Holden!
After his wife died, he married Diana Davison — widow of Lex Davison who had died in a motor racing accident at Sandown Park. Thus he was the step-grandfather to the third generation of racing Davisons — Alex, Will and James.
F.A.O. Gaze was 93 years of age when he died in 2013.
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