A CANADIAN aviation historian is hoping Kidderminster people can help him end a 10-year search for information about a town man who died in a Second World War crash. A contemporary Canadian newspaper photograph of the doomed bomber.

Bob Banting is appealing for details of William Bird, the Kidderminster navigator of a Lockheed Hudson bomber, which crashed in Nova Scotia while on a flight from Canada to England in February, 1941.

Despite a search for information about Mr Bird lasting several years, all Canadian historians have uncovered is Mr Bird's service number - but records from the Royal Air Force are only available to family members.

Now Mr Banting is looking to Kidderminster people to fill in the gaps.

The crash also claimed the lives of Canadians William Snailham and Mr Banting's great uncle Sir Frederick Banting, who won a Nobel Prize for medicine as co-discoverer of insulin.

Sir Frederick was on his way to England to get first-hand information on the war research he was conducting.

American pilot Joe Mackey was the sole survivor of the flight. He died in 1982.

Mr Banting, 59, of Oakville, Ontario, said: "Historians at Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland, which is near where Hudson bomber T-9449 crashed, have been looking for information on Mr Bird for many years. William Bird's grave in Canada.

"They have set up a permanent memorial to the crash. It seems unfair not to have more information on Mr Bird available for people and historians who visit the display.

"Mr Bird died in the service of his country in Newfoundland, which was part of the British Empire at the time."

Thirty books published in Canada have documented the crash but none have details of the navigator.

Mr Banting conducted an internet search and found the Kidderminster and District Historical and Archaeological Society's website.

He is now in constant touch with the society's treasurer and web co-ordinator, Bob Millward who said: "William Bird is a bit of a mystery.

"I can find no sign of him on any of the Kidderminster war memorials and reference to the Commonwealth War Grave Commission website provides no evidence of family or residential background."

Anyone with information should contact Mr Millward on 01562 515087 or e-mail Mr Banting at bob@banting.ca.

How the Canadian press reported the funeral of Kidderminster man

William Bird

Banting's navigator is buried at Halifax with full honors

Halifax, March 3 (CP). - F.O. William Bird of the Royal Air Force was buried in a flag-covered coffin today and his old garrison city stayed the flow of its downtown traffic to make way for the Royal Canadian Air Force lorry which carried his body.

With military honors, the R.C.A.F. laid to rest one of the three men who perished eleven days ago in the crash of a military plane in the Newfoundland wilderness. Bird was the navigator.

In sharp contrast, William Snailham of Bedford, N.S., wireless operator aboard the craft, was buried in Halifax after brief civilian rites.

The funeral of the third victim, Sir Frederick Banting, will be held tomorrow in Toronto.

There were no kinfolk to watch when Bird, an Englishman from Kidderminster, was lowered into the grave after a service at ancient St. Paul's, oldest Protestant church in Canada.

But a native of his home country stood with Air Force escort and firing parties and a few civilians at the grave.

He had never met Bird, he told Flt.- Lt. Rev. W.S. Dunlop, R.C.A.F. chaplain, but felt he should attend.

An Air Force band and the two parties escorted the lorry through Halifax streets while hundreds of civilians watched.

The cap of an R.A.F. officer was placed atop the Union Jack draped over the coffin.

The firing party poured three volleys into the sky at the grave while the band rendered Abide With Me. Two Air Force buglers rippled the March air with The Last Post.