The story has become WW2 folklore and even gets a special mention in Sir Douglas Bader's famous book, Fight for the Sky.
McNair took off in his plane with instructions to patrol the night sky around Liverpool in March 1941.
He spotted the German plane heading south and, though he was heading north east, he turned toward the bomber and began tailing it. Despite having no covering fighters he closed to 75 feet and made repeated attacks, strafing the German bomber with bursts of machine gun fire.
McNair's windscreen was smothered in oil and he was running dangerously low on fuel, but he managed to blow the plane out of the sky before returning to base.
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