Pupils from Royal Russell School travelled to The Netherlands to pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of a former pupil who was killed during World War Two.

Ten cadets from the Coombe Lane school attended the Zenderen Liberation Day celebrations in honour of RAF flight officer Gerald Hood, whose refusal to give information to the Gestapo helped liberate the town.

Gerald was an orphan who was educated at Royal Russell from the age of eight. He became a flight officer in the RAF and was shot down in The Netherlands in August 1944.

He was picked up and sheltered by the Dutch Resistance in the north-east of the country, close to the German border.

He was sheltered in the home of a Dutch family, along with their son, who had been called up for German military service, until March 1945.

Paul Barlow, the school's bursar, said: "Sheltered with Gerald was the family's 22-year-old eldest son, who was wanted for service, and the Germans repeatedly searched the house looking for him.

"After one particularly long search it became so frightening, with the Germans threatening to shoot the family, that Gerald and the son gave themselves up.

"The Gestapo interrogated Gerald for about 10 days but he never revealed the location of the Resistance. In the end they took him into the woods and shot him. They killed the young Dutch man a week later.

"While he stayed with the family Gerald struck up a close friendship with a 19-year-old daughter. The pair were extremely close during that time and she was planning to attend the ceremony this weekend to honour him. Sadly she died from cancer last weekend.

"She never spoke about it but it is believed she was the only living person who had a link with Gerald.

"It's just such a sad story. He was an orphan and had no one. His old squadron is to present medals for Gerald's bravery but there is no relative to give them to. The Ministry of Defence decided to give them to the school instead."

The people of Zenderen honoured Gerald and the student's bravery with a statue. The town's liberation day celebrations were held in the woods where they were both killed.

More than 200 people - including pupils and staff from Royal Russell - attended this year's ceremony at the beginning of May. A wreath was laid by the senior cadets on behalf of Royal Russell and the cadet contingent and they witnessed the children of the small town each laying a white rose.

Representatives from Zenderen who attended a ceremony at the school on Saturday unveiled an oak sapling in memory of Gerald, taken from the wood where he was shot. By a strange coincidence it has been planted in the exact spot where Gerald posed for his final school photograph before joining the RAF.

Gerald's old squadron was due to stage a fly-past in honour of him.

The heroics of Gerald were unknown in Croydon until they were recently unearthed by the Old Russellian Society, which was researching the records of past pupils killed during the war.