Flypast tribute to WWII airman killed in training

A POIGNANT flypast is planned where a 21-year-old Teesside airman died during WWII training.

- By DAVE ROBSON

Sergeant Peter Sanderson, of Middlesbrough, was part of a six-strong crew that perished when the bomber they were flying in was downed by a German plane over the Oxfordshire countryside on July 5, 1941.

And on July 5 this year - exactly 84 years since he died - Sgt Sanderson and his five colleagues will be remembered by a Lancaster bomber flypast after years of research by relative Ian Allison.

Ian, of Billingham, knew basic details about his great uncle Peter's bravery and demise but set about learning more.

And now, after years of painstaking research and a successful approach to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight for a flypast tribute, he admits it will be an emotional moment next month when a Lancaster flies over the crash scene.

A clerk at Dorman Long before joining the RAF in summer 1940, George Charles Peter Sanderson, known as Peter, was the son of Annie and Percy George Sanderson. Tragically, Percy also lost his life to enemy action, aged 55, as a Merchant Navy chief engineer aboard the SS Warlaby on February 12,1941 - just five months before son Peter died.