A MAN who was shot down in Germany 74 years ago has finally been laid to rest in a moving ceremony.

The family of Sgt Reginald Renton, a bomb aimer on a Stirling bomber, travelled to Ludwigshafen in South-West Germany, to attend a ceremony in a field marking the site where the airman died in September 1943.

The circumstances of his death were unknown to his North Yorkshire family – including his daughter Valerie Renton, now aged 76 – who at the time were only told he had been shot down.

That was until former Dutch paratrooper Erik Wieman got in contact with the family.

He works with archaeologists in Germany who investigate reports of sites where English and Allied personnel died. He then shares the information and any personal items found with their living relatives.

Mr Wieman had been working in excavating Roman artefacts, but switched to allied sites when he realised information from people who lived through the war and knew the location of the sites was disappearing.

He found the exact place part of the 90 Squadron Stirling aircraft came down in Ludwigshafen, killing all seven crew members – five British, one New Zealander and one Canadian.

The former marine found the site after an elderly man pointed to the part of the field where the plane had come down on his father’s farmland. Another resident told him where the plane’s wing had come down, allowing him to piece together what happened to the bomber in its last moments.

Mr Wieman, who now lives in Germany, and members of his team uncovered 2,000 aircraft parts from the bomber. He is now investigating at least 20 other sites in the area.

He told Forces Network: “We’re interested in these crash sites. We want to make them public again because we walk fields, nobody knows about it. Then I started to look in my direct area and when I heard about this site we started our research here.”

A ceremony took place at the site, before a memorial to the crash was unveiled in front of 18 of the airmen's relatives. The airmen who flew in the Stirling EF129 are buried in the Rheinberg military cemetery.

Ms Renton, who lives in Bishop Monkton near Ripon, and her daughter, Sallyann were among those to attend the ceremony.

The memorial stone and plaque was unveiled by the Mayor of Limburgerhof and the memorial stone for the airmen killed in action was blessed by a member of the clergy from the Diocese of Speyer.

Members of German and British forces also attended.