I did ask him recently, through a third party, if he remembered the circumstances on that day – more out of interest than anything else.

I have found much about Bill’s last mission on that grey day in February 1940via the net – much more in fact than his immediate family ever knew. I had hoped that Oberst Falck’s response might have added the final piece in the jigsaw, but sadly he could remember little of that day – still at least I tried to pay my own tribute to the memory of one of thousands of aircrew on all sides lost during that time of conflict.