A grateful town hoping to celebrate a heroic RAF airman has asked his family to come forward.

Memorial organisers from Markelo in Holland are appealing for information about Sergeant Roy Victor Ledger from Mitcham, who was shot down over the town during the Second World War.

Sgt Ledger died in 1943 aged 21 when his B11 Halifax bomber was downed while returning from a raid over Berlin in 1943.

The radio operator’s body was never recovered and, unlike the rest of the aeroplane’s crew, he does not have a grave marking his place of death.

He is thought to have been born in Croydon, and his parents were Albert Mark and Edith Olive Ledger from Mitcham. There are no known images of the airman.

New Zealander Darryl Robertson, who has been helping the search for information about Sgt Ledger, said the airman was a war hero – and tracking down his family would mean “a great deal” to the people of Markelo.

Sgt Ledger was with 35 squadron on a bombing pathfinder mission to Berlin, which took off from the RAF Gravely base in Cambridgeshire on March 3, 1943. His bomber was shot down on its return flight, killing six of the seven crew.

Two other British bombers were shot down at the same time, resulting in 18 fatalities and three survivors.

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