A World War Two bomber shot down by the Nazis over the Mediterranean has been found after 82 years.
RAF Airman Leslie Norman Row, from Gravesend, Kent, was flying a mission near the coast of Greece when his Baltimore Bomber was attacked.
The plane, part of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), crashed off the Greek island of Antikythera – and Leslie and two comrades lost their lives.
Now, after almost 82 years of uncertainty, divers have brought closure to the families of the dead, finding the bomber below the Aegean Sea.
Harry Green, president of the Gravesham and Ebbsfleet branch of the Royal British Legion, said the young airman had made the ultimate sacrifice.
He said: ‘He died in the name of his country, and that in itself says it all.
He’s given up his life, he’s given up his future, and all his family. It’s taken a long time to find the plane, and respect to the people who have gone out and found it.’
Leslie, a navigator, flew his final mission on December 3, 1943, when he and his comrades were given the task of photographing the Greek coast.
Air gunners Colin William Walker of the RAAF and John Gartside of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) were also on the mission.
The only survivor was the Aussie pilot, William Alroy Hugh Horsley, who was handed over to the Germans and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner.
After his release, Horsley described how they had been returning from their mission when they were engaged by two Messerschmitt Bf 109s.
He later recounted: ‘The Me-109s delivered seven attacks, during which the aircraft was set on fire in the port wing. The intercommunications systems were destroyed, and Pilot Officer Walker and Warrant Officer Gartside wounded – extent unknown.’
What followed was a rough landing at sea. Horsley was rescued by Greek fishermen and brought to shore.
For 81 years the plane was hidden beneath the Aegean Sea, until last year, when a Greek technical diving group rediscovered it. They contacted the History and Heritage Branch of the Aussie Air Force, where it was confirmed to be the missing plane.
Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, Chief of the Air Staff at the RAF said: ‘It’s an honour to acknowledge the bravery of the multinational crew. This was a generation that embodied the importance of service and comradeship.
‘Their efforts were the base on which the RAF continues to maintain the security of the UK at home and abroad.’
Air marshal Stephen Chappell, chief of the RAAF, hoped the find would bring closure: ‘This aircraft discovery is significant and offers the chance to provide closure to families.
‘The efforts of groups such as AegeanTec are critical for us in accounting for those 3,143 Australian aviators with no known grave from the Second World War and the Korean conflict.’
Row was born on March 2, 1918, to Albert Edward and Florence Mabel Row.
A biography of him on the Gravesend Grammar School website lists him as a former pupil, back when it was known as The County School for Boys.
In his time at the school, he appeared in a school production of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, was a prefect, and played in the school’s first XV rugby team.
Row left school in 1937 and joined the RAF in 1941, following in the footsteps of his father who’d served in the merchant navy during the First World War.
His dad joined the Royal Navy reserves during the Second World War, and was reunited with Row briefly reunited in Egypt.
Just a few months later, the younger man was killed. He is now remembered at the Alamein Memorial in Egypt.
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