Squadron Leader George Morley Fidler was shot down by a German Messerschmitt on May 19, 1940, as he tried to protect British troops retreating to Dunkirk. His Hurricane, part of 607 Squadron, was one of 12 downed that day. Fidler had been lost for 80 years despite what was believed to be his body being given a grave by soldiers who found a Hurricane's wreckage and assumed it was his. After his death, a Hurricane was found which was assumed to be his, and the body was given a hurried grave by soldiers and later re-interred in a cemetery in Bachy, a French village.
In 2006, a group of amateur historians excavated the crash site and found the plane had been flown by a different officer. It was not until 2006 that the aircraft was proven to belong not to Fidler, but to James Strickland of 67 Squadron. Strickland baled out and returned home before being killed in August 1941 as his Spitfire crashed in Portreath, Cornwall.
Almost 20 years later, French engineers working on a canal at Oisy-le-Verger in the Pas de Calais found Fidler's Hurricane, with its pilot sitting upright in the cockpit. It was impossible to test for DNA, as Fidler had no children and nor did his two siblings, so the airman, from Great Ayton in North Yorkshire, was identified after samples from three other pilots who crashed that day ruled them out. The specific evidence that led soldiers to initially misidentify the grave as Fidler's remains unclear, but it is believed the downed Hurricane pilot was either wearing kit which belonged to Fidler or had his parachute, which led the soldiers to mark his grave with his name.
The body found in the downed aircraft now has the inscription 'unknown airman' on its grave; it may belong to one of two flight sergeants shot down that day, but the Ministry of Defence does not allow exhuming graves for identification reasons.
Fidler had worked for his father's building business and joined the RAF in 1934 aged 21. After being posted to Egypt for three years, he was promoted to acting flight lieutenant in 1938 and posted to France the following year as part of the British Expeditionary Force.
He will be laid to rest next month on the 86th anniversary of the day his Hurricane crashed, providing closure after decades of uncertainty.