A poignant memorial to the crew and passengers was held at the small French town of Le Grand-Luce after a historian tracked down relatives for a remembrance service earlier this month.

Twenty-four year old Lance from Holmer Road, Hereford, was navigator in the RAF Dakota when it hit bad weather over Le Mans and the crew and passengers were all killed. The plane, en route from Karachi, was bound for home after a long and brutal war.

Family members Sue Elias, Jane Williams and Stuart Williams attended the moving ceremony where stories of the fateful event were recounted and forgotten memories rekindled.

Among the relatives was a woman in her late 80s whose husband was killed leaving her with a two-year-old. She returned with her son and his son to visit the grave of a father and grandfather they had not known.

Another of the crew members who was stationed in Canada and married there, never knew his wife was pregnant and she came with her son to remember the family she never had.

“None of us ever met my uncle, Lance. He was my mother’s older brother and she adored him so much she never let his memory be forgotten,” said Jane.

The 24-year-old serviceman, who had flown all around the world, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and would return with adventures of his travels and exploits.

“His stories would capture my mother’s imagination and she loved it when he brought his friends home on leave. He was such a lively personality and even when he died he lived on because she would tell us about her big brother and talk to us about him,” she said.

“We knew he was buried in a little war cemetery and we had visited it but we never knew the extent of how the French people felt about the British serviceman and I think the memorial has changed my opinion of them.” The French historian Gerard Chartier tracked down five families after stumbling upon the site and felt it should be marked like the many more memorials to British servicemen and women around the country “The service was incredible, almost the whole town turned up with schoolchildren and a brass band with standard bearers and retired soldiers. It was very emotional for all of us and I learned that the French are very grateful to the servicemen who gave up their lives for them and never want them to be forgotten,” added Jane.