Remains of RAF pilot found sitting upright in WW2 Hurricane finally laid to rest 86 years on

An RAF pilot shot down over France in the Second World War and found sitting upright in his Hurricane fighter plane, has finally been laid to rest exactly 86 years to the day since his death.

Today, an RAF bearer party gently carried the coffin of Squadron Leader George Morley Fidler, draped in a Union Jack, to a grave at the London Cemetery and Extension in Longueval, northern France.

Engineers building a canal in northern France in 2023 discovered the remains of Mr Fidler, who had been missing since 1940.

Workers at Oisy-le-Verger, around 27 miles south of Lille, unearthed Hurricane P3535 with the 27-year-old pilot still seated upright in the cockpit.

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Stephen Naji, head of the recovery unit at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who was among the first on the scene of the discovery, said at the time: "We had not expected to find any remains.

"The Hurricane had more or less nosedived into the ground but he was still there in his straps."

During the funeral service, Reverend Helene Grant, the RAF chaplain who led the service, said: "To be gathered here, to have the privilege of being here on the anniversary of his death, is extraordinary.

"He, alongside so many others, answered the call of his country, served with honour and gave his life in the service of his nation, counting service to others greater than service to self."

Mr Fidler, originally from Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, was 27 when he died at the controls of his Hurricane from 607 Squadron.

After being swarmed by German Luftwaffe pilots over France in May 1940, he was shot down as British soldiers retreated towards Dunkirk.

After his discovery, Ministry of Defence investigators identified him through elimination by testing samples from three other pilots lost that day.

The pilot began his career at his father's building firm, but always dreamed of taking to the skies - enlisting in the RAF in 1934 at age 21, where, after two weeks of basic training at Uxbridge, he served in Egypt for three years.

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Superiors rated him "a sound and reliable pilot, excellent on ground subjects", and by 1938, assessors deemed him "exceptional" and promoted him to acting flight lieutenant.

On the fateful day in 1940, twelve other Hurricanes were shot down, with Mr Fidler originally assumed buried and later moved by the French to a cemetery in Bachy, some 20 miles from the crash site.

His family was already grieving his sister, who had died a month earlier from a disease contracted while working as a military hospital radiographer.

When the telegram arrived, home help Ivy Hynes could not bring herself to open it and asked a local nurse to read it instead.

Great Ayton has never forgotten its pilot, with four memorials honouring him.

In 2006, Franco-Belgian amateur historians excavated what was believed to be his crash site using metal detectors - a wreckage that instead belonged to Flying Officer James Strickland of 67 Squadron.

The grave at Bachy had carried a tribute from Sqn Ldr Fidler's mother Gertrude: "So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

Following the discovery, the headstone was changed to read "unknown airman" - and while nobody knows the identity of the man in the grave, it may be one of two flight sergeants shot down that day.

At today's funeral service, 607 Squadron’s newest leader, Lorna Withers, read an extract from Noël Coward’s poem Lie In The Dark and Listen.

Warrant Officer Mark Boston also read The Airman’s Prayer, and The Last Post was played by Trumpeter Corporal Malcolm Knapp.

Mr Fidler is now buried in the countryside - a plot next to Flight Engineer Sergeant Norman Harold Shergold from 61 Squadron, who was killed on June 25, 1944, aged 19.

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