Red Arrows commemorate Canadian WW2 airmen

The Red Arrows have flown over Dorset to mark the deaths of six Canadian airmen shot down by accident during World War Two.

They passed over Sturminster Common on Saturday to commemorate those killed when a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Vickers Wellington bomber was downed on 29 May 1944.

Albert Spinks, 18, William Geddes, Leonard Smith and Bruce Gordon, all 21, were lost when an RAF pilot shot their plane down.

Charles Blackmore, 23, and Donald McKie, 24, were also killed.

(Clockwise from top left) Albert Spinks, Leonard Smith, Donald McKie, Charles Blackmore, William Geddes and Bruce Gordon died in Dorset on 29 May 1944

In logs, it said the RAF pilot had not identified himself correctly to the RCAF plane and was unaware of allied Wellington bombers being in the Dorset area.

Home Guard officer Sidney Symes, who was the first man on the scene of the crash, looked after F/O McKie until he died.

The six men were buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery in Surrey.

They had been taking part in an operation over Nantes, France, and had originally taken off from Ossington in Nottinghamshire.