He was a courageous pilot, believed to have flown more operational missions than anyone else in RAF Bomber Command, yet Alec Cranswick’s name is not well known in his home town of Oxford.

But as we prepare to remember those who have served their country on Remembrance Sunday tomorrow and on Armistice Day on Tuesday, Oxford Mail reader Brian Sperrin is calling for recognition for Squadron Leader Cranswick’s heroism in the Second World War.

He said: “Alec Cranswick was my hero growing up in Kidlington, yet hardly anyone knows about him.

“With Remembrance Day coming up, I feel more people should know about him.”

Possibly the greatest RAF Pathfinder pilot of the war, Sqn Ldr Cranswick and his crew led the way for major raids, dropping flares on enemy targets to guide in the heavy bombers.

A solitary man who was killed in action in 1944, he was described as “a legend” by colleague Hamish G Mahaddie, who wrote in his memoirs: “Alec Cranswick was the perfect Englishman, quiet and retiring, but as a bomber captain in an exclusive class of his own.”

Born to Philip and May Cranswick in St Giles, while the fair was in town in 1919, Alec Cranswick attended St Edward’s School in Wood-stock Road — an institution which also educated fellow flying aces Douglas Bader, Guy Gibson and Louis Strange.

Christopher Nathan, an archivist at the school, said: “Cranswick was a very special Old St Edwardian in the Second World War and he has rather been neglected, compared with the likes of Strange, Bader and Gibson.

“After leaving the school in 1936, he joined the Metropoli-tan Police in 1937 before switching to the RAF a year later. He began his Second World War service flying Wellington bombers from Stradishall, Suffolk, where he undertook 29 missions.

“While there in 1940 he volunteered for further operations in the Middle East and Malta with 148 Squadron. He was credited with 61 sorties.”

Having returned to England in 1941, he was accepted for Pathfinder operations over Europe and began flying Halifax bombers. Mr Nathan added: “Pathfinding was ex-tremely dangerous work, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

“Rather to his disgust he was then posted to headquarters in an administrative capacity but soon returned to more active duty with the same Pathfinder Squadron, now flying Lancasters.”

He lost his life in 1944, aged 24 wheh his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire near Paris.

Married shortly before his death, Sqn Ldr Cranswick left a young son, Alexander, who also went to St Edward’s.

Mr Nathan said: “It’s thought that Cranswick flew more operations than any other Bomber Command pilot, believed to have been 147 in total..”

Air Vice Marshal Donald Bennett, in a foreword to the 1962 book Pathfinder Crans-wick by Michael Cumming, said: “He hated war, but more hated the tyranny and injustice which was Germany itself. He fought them with his all.”