Burial for Spitfire Ace 60 years on
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Burial for Spitfire Ace 60 years on
From the Daily Mail today:
Flight Lieutenant Desmond Ibbotson was just 23 - but already a war hero - when his plane crashed during a training mission over Italy.
With eleven confirmed 'kills' and having walked away from several spectacular crash landings and escaped capture after taking tea with Desert Fox Field Marshal Erwin Rommel the fact he died 'off duty' was nothing short of tragic.
His Spitfire cut out as he was on a training mission in skies above the Italian village of Castel Nouvo near Assisi in November 1944.
With his dashing good looks and colourful life relatives of Fllight Lieutenant Ibbotson have described him as a 'Premiership footballer of his day' and paid tribute to him ahead of this morning's ceremony which is due to take place at Assisi close to where his Spitfire crashed.
His nephew, John Richardson, 59, from Thorp Arch near Wetherby said:"This is going to be a very emotional few days for me and all the family.
"I have just been to the spot where the Spitfire crashed and it was very moving. I was born two and a half years after my uncle died and given his name as my middle name and grew up hearing all about him.
"In a way he was a Premiership footballer of his time as he was a very dashing young man, a fighter pilot with a sports car and was very handsome.
"My mother Muriel who is 81 now was a teenager and remembers him as her wonderful older brother and told me how he was always interested in flying and joined the RAF as soon as war broke out.
"The ceremony is going to be very moving for me and it will bring back memories of how I was told all about his colourful and very full live which was cut short at just 23 years old.
"He was a very succesful pilot shooting down several enemy aircraft and had a number of very lucky scrapes including crashing behind enemy lines, meeting Rommel and then escaping.
"To think that he was eventually killed not in action but on a training mission is even more poignant."
Volunteers from an Italian historical society discovered the remains at Castel Nuovo near Assisi and contacted officials at the British Embassy in Rome who with the help of the Ministry of Defence tracked down his relatives.
At this morning's ceremony a trumpeter from the RAF will sound the "Last Post" and a local band will play the national anthems of the two countries.
Flight Lieutenant Ibbotson will be buried with full military honours in a fitting send-off for a man whose inspiring "keenness and determination" in battle was recorded in the London Gazette in February 1943.
Perhaps his greatest claim to wartime fame was when he took tea with the legendary German soldier Field Marshal Erwin Rommel after he crash landed behind enemy lines.
After the meeting he was found himslef in jail at the Corps headquarters but he didn't accept Rommel's ' hospitality' for long and managed to escape and make his way back to Allied lines. He was shot down again at the end of the Africa campaign, but survived and moved on to Italy - where he supported the Allied advance north from Sicily before moving onto mainland Italy where he was killed in November 1944.
Flight Lieutenant Desmond Ibbotson was just 23 - but already a war hero - when his plane crashed during a training mission over Italy.
With eleven confirmed 'kills' and having walked away from several spectacular crash landings and escaped capture after taking tea with Desert Fox Field Marshal Erwin Rommel the fact he died 'off duty' was nothing short of tragic.
His Spitfire cut out as he was on a training mission in skies above the Italian village of Castel Nouvo near Assisi in November 1944.
With his dashing good looks and colourful life relatives of Fllight Lieutenant Ibbotson have described him as a 'Premiership footballer of his day' and paid tribute to him ahead of this morning's ceremony which is due to take place at Assisi close to where his Spitfire crashed.
His nephew, John Richardson, 59, from Thorp Arch near Wetherby said:"This is going to be a very emotional few days for me and all the family.
"I have just been to the spot where the Spitfire crashed and it was very moving. I was born two and a half years after my uncle died and given his name as my middle name and grew up hearing all about him.
"In a way he was a Premiership footballer of his time as he was a very dashing young man, a fighter pilot with a sports car and was very handsome.
"My mother Muriel who is 81 now was a teenager and remembers him as her wonderful older brother and told me how he was always interested in flying and joined the RAF as soon as war broke out.
"The ceremony is going to be very moving for me and it will bring back memories of how I was told all about his colourful and very full live which was cut short at just 23 years old.
"He was a very succesful pilot shooting down several enemy aircraft and had a number of very lucky scrapes including crashing behind enemy lines, meeting Rommel and then escaping.
"To think that he was eventually killed not in action but on a training mission is even more poignant."
Volunteers from an Italian historical society discovered the remains at Castel Nuovo near Assisi and contacted officials at the British Embassy in Rome who with the help of the Ministry of Defence tracked down his relatives.
At this morning's ceremony a trumpeter from the RAF will sound the "Last Post" and a local band will play the national anthems of the two countries.
Flight Lieutenant Ibbotson will be buried with full military honours in a fitting send-off for a man whose inspiring "keenness and determination" in battle was recorded in the London Gazette in February 1943.
Perhaps his greatest claim to wartime fame was when he took tea with the legendary German soldier Field Marshal Erwin Rommel after he crash landed behind enemy lines.
After the meeting he was found himslef in jail at the Corps headquarters but he didn't accept Rommel's ' hospitality' for long and managed to escape and make his way back to Allied lines. He was shot down again at the end of the Africa campaign, but survived and moved on to Italy - where he supported the Allied advance north from Sicily before moving onto mainland Italy where he was killed in November 1944.
