Bryan Johncock said:

The LJ850, of RAF 620 Squadron, was one of three Stirlings that took off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire on the night of June 17, 1944.

As it was a covert operation, scant details of the mission have ever been released, and records will remain sealed until 100 years after the event.

The unit of SAS paratroopers were meant to have been dropped into the Burgundy region of France to resupply local Resistance fighters in their effort to disrupt the Nazi response to the Allied invasion of Normandy.

However, two of the Stirlings returned to base after encountering heavy fog but LJ850 came down in a ball of flames.

It had always been assumed by the plane came down in the English Channel, but final proof that it went down in Calvados, Normandy, came in 2015.

The seven RAF crew who are still officially listed as missing are Robert Crane, Frank Johnson, John Clasper, David Evans, Granville Stopford, Benjamin Profit and Philip Wilding.

The 16 SAS paratroopers were James Arbuckle, John Bowen, Harold Brook, William Bryson, Leslie Cairns, William Creaney, Donald Gale, George Hayes, George Law, William Leadbetter, Charles MacFarlane, Dominic McBride, Ronald Miller, James O'Reilly, John Rogers and Reginald Wortley.

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