Disappeared RAF crew receive official burial

ROME – The crew of an RAF bomber discovered nearly 70 years after it was shot down by anti-aircraft gunfire have been buried at an official ceremony in Italy.

 The four men on board were all under 21 years old when they set forth from Rimini in April 1945, just weeks before the war came to a close. On board were Sgt. David Raikes, an aspiring poet whose works were published in a posthumous collection in 1954; radio operator Sgt. Alexander Bostock, navigator Sgt. David Perkins and Australian air gunner Warrant Officer John Hunt.

 The remains of the Douglas A-20K Boston Mark V were discovered by an amateur archeology society called Archeologi dell'Aria led by Fabio Raimondi, in a field near the city of Ferrara.

 A new section of Felonica’s Second World War Museum has been opened to accommodate the wreckage, nicknamed “Pippo”. Bits of the plane have been displayed alongside personal effects belonging to the officers, including a watch that was recovered at the scene.

 It is hoped that the display of the partially destroyed bomber will reignite interest in the chain of events that led to its destruction. The exhibition’s opening, organised by the city council and the Felonica museum, was timed to coincide with the crew’s burial, which took place at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Padova on July 18.

 The two-year gap between the plane's discovery and the burial was due partly to the extensive DNA tests carried out on the bodies, which were all but decomposed. Once the men had been correctly identified, their families had to be tracked down.

 RAF representatives and members of the British and Australian embassies paid their respects at the ceremony, alongside the crew's relatives as well as some of those who had participated in the planes’s excavation. The remains of the four men were contained within a single coffin that was covered in a union jack.