The crew of a Second World War bomber, which crashed in Norfolk killing six of its seven crew, have been honoured with a memorial more than 70 years after they flew their last mission.
Six Australian air force personnel and an RAF engineer took off on board the Lancaster code-named H for Harry on October 23, 1944.
After dropping their bombs on Germany's Ruhr Valley the aircraft, of the Royal Australian Air Force's 460 Sqn, turned north for the long flight back to its base in Binbrook, Lincs.
But on its crew's 10th mission, H-Harry was raked by anti-aircraft fire. Losing height, with ice forming on its wings, pilot Denis Richins tried to divert for Bircham Newton, in Norfolk, but the Lancaster crashed near Houghton Hall.
Just one of her seven crew survived. Flt Sgt Jack Cannon, 19, was the youngest man on board and mid-upper gunner. Unconscious, having been wounded by the anti-aircraft fire, his turret was knocked clean out of the plane and he survived.
Limping from the woods after regaining consciousness, propped up on a branch, he confronted a man he believed to be a German farm worker with a knife, to be met with an incredulous: 'You be in Norfolk boy. That's King's Lynn over there.'
Flt Sgt Cannon returned to Australia wherehe became a successful journalist. In 1988, he returned to Houghton to see the crash site and have tea with Lady Sybil Cholmondeley and members of her family. He died, aged 82, in 2007.
The memorial to the crew was unveiled after a service in the little church at Houghton, conducted by the Rev Dr Edward Bundock.
Wing Commander Anthony O'Leary, of the Royal Australian Air Force, said: 'These men understood the risks but they had the courage and the moral fortitude to walk out to those aircraft and take the fight to the enemy day and night.'
At the height of the bomber offensive, crews stood a less than 50pc chance of completing a 'tour' of 30 missions over Germany.
Lord Cholmondeley of Houghton Hall said: 'It's part of the history of Houghton. There are very few left now at Houghton who remember those days. Apparently you could hear the mombers taking off from Bircham Aerodrome.'
Hall guide and retired BBC Radio Norfolk studio manager Chris Boxall, who researched the crash and organised the memorial, said: 'I've always hoped that there would one day be a memorial to these man and that day has finally come.'
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