AFTER nearly 70 years, the full details of a wartime air crash that claimed the life of Sergeant Pilot Stanley Edmund Downs, have finally been revealed.

His family knew little more than that he had died near Chipping Norton.

They approached the Oxford Mail to see if the paper had carried a story of the crash at the time.

But, as in many other cases, information was suppressed by the military so as not to damage morale.

Now, after patient research, the family has been able to build a picture of its fallen relative.

Sergeant Pilot Downs, regarded as the brains of the family, studied as Southall Technical College, Middlesex, and worked for the Gramophone Company at nearby Hayes before being called up in June 1941.

He joined the RAF, was awarded his wings and completed 30 missions over enemy territory.

After safely finishing his tour, he was posted to the No 6 (Pilots) Advanced Flying Unit at RAF Little Rissington, in Gloucestershire.

On August 21, 1942, a day before he was due home on leave, he took off on a training exercise in his Oxford Mark II with his pupil, Sergeant J McDonald Rankin, of the Royal Australian Air Force.

Soon afterwards, they were in collision with a Wellington, also on a cross-country training exercise.

The Wellington, with a crew of six, broke up and crashed on the outskirts of Chipping Norton.

The Oxford crashed on farmland at Over Norton, about a mile away.

All eight men in the two planes were killed.

The family have posted a tribute to Stanley Downs on the VacantChair.co.uk website, which commemorates military personnel who have given their lives.

On it, they say: “We have taken great comfort in discovering that the people of Chipping Norton commemorated this tragic loss with a plaque, situated in Church Street, remembering the names of those who lost their lives in this incident.”