French villagers still honour our war heroes

TEESSIDE PILOT WAS ON A SECRET MISSION WHEN THE PLANE CRASHED

- By GAVIN HAVERY

A TEESSIDE hero is among a team of airmen remembered by French villagers each year after a secret WWII mission plane crash.

Now the great-grandson of the craft's Welsh pilot, who miraculously survived the tragedy, is trying to trace the family of the Teesside crewman.

Sergeant Frederick Davies, a flight engineer from Middlesbrough, was on board a Halifax bomber dropping supplies to the French Resistance when it collided with houses in Meythet, near Annecy.

The 25-year-old was one of six aircrew who died along with five villagers, including two men and a mother with her daughter, three, and one-year-old son in the early hours of August 15, 1943.

Official records state the plane crash-landed due to a 'technical malfunction' but Squadron Leader Frank Griffiths, who survived the crash, later updated his logbook to say the plane's fuel pipe was damaged after it was shot at by Italian soldiers.

His dramatic escape across Nazi-occupied Europe is now the basis of a new book written by his great-grandson, Adam Hart, who retraced his steps.