Funeral to be held for second world war Spitfire pilot 70 years after his death

The family of a lost Spitfire pilot killed in a second world war dogfight have spoken of their relief after his body was found by chance 70 years later. Sergeant William Smith, 24, was presumed to have crashed and died in the middle of the English Channel after his plane was hit by an enemy aircraft in 1942. For the next seven decades his relatives held on to the slim hope that a fishing trawler might one day drag up the wreckage so that they could bury their loved one. However, Smith's remains, and his plane, were found 30 miles inland in a French field by a British historian and film crew searching for a different aircraft thought to have crashed at the spot. Smith's body, found 7.5 metres (25ft) beneath the surface of the field near Cassel, was identified by a dog tag with his name and service number on it. A lucky sixpence and a St Christopher medal were on the same chain. The airman's younger brother, Bert, 84, is preparing to lead his family at a funeral with full military honours in Cassel on Thursday. Smith's nephew, Mark, 55, said: "My family had assumed that my uncle had been shot down and he and his plane had ended up in the Channel. When my father found out Bill's body had been found without hearing anything for 69 years, he was stunned, shocked and somewhat relieved at the same time. It is important that there will be a resting place for him where family members can go and visit and pay their respects for years to come." Smith, from Melbourne, was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force . He was stationed at Redhill in Surrey and on 9 May 1942 his Spitfire helped escort bombers in a raid over northern France. On his return, he and his colleagues were attacked by German fighter planes and Smith was lost. Mark Smith, a schoolteacher, said: "Bill's disappearance had a devastating impact on the family, especially his mother, Freda, who was very close to him. She used to scan and rescan the photos of prisoners of war in the newspapers and look for someone that looked like Bill and would almost be convinced that some of them were him. "Dad didn't talk a lot about him but Bill's picture was always present on the mantelpiece of my family home as we were growing up." Smith's funeral will take place at 10.30am on Thursday at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of Cassel cemetery. A documentary on the find is due to be broadcast on the Discovery History channel on Friday.