The family of an RAF gunner whose aircraft has been recovered more than 75 years after it vanished will finally visit the Netherlands after the operation.

Sgt Leonard Richard James Shrubsall, from Iwade, near Sittingbourne, was one of seven crew members on board the Short Stirling Bomber when it was lost returning from a raid on Germany.

The BK716 aircraft had flown out from Downham Market in Norfolk when it went missing on March 29, 1943.

Gunner Sgt Shrubsall’s wife, Beatrice, was three months pregnant when she received a telegram informing her that her 30-year-old husband had failed to return from air operations.

His son Richard, now 78, always thought his father’s aircraft had been shot down over the North Sea until he learned the bomber was discovered in 2019.

The operation to recover it, from Lake IJsselmeer in the Netherlands, started on August 31 last year.

Richard’s wife, Janice, also 78, said: “We’ve been told they recovered 95 per cent of the plane.

“It took about six weeks.”

Now the couple, from Iwade, have been invited to visit Almere, in the Netherlands, in October – Covid-19 restrictions permitting.

During their four-day trip, they will attend a ceremony in the National Monument for Resistance, and a statue unveiling, among other things.

Janice said: “We are really looking forward to it.

“We were supposed to go out there at the very beginning of lockdown last March, then again at the end of last year but that didn’t happen. So third time lucky, we hope.”

When asked how the whole ordeal had been for the couple, Janice said: “It has been very emotional.

“Right at the start, the letter about the plane recovery just came out of the blue; it was a shock.”

She added: “Actually, we were watching Long Lost Family the other night and Richard was saying how wonderful it was for people to find their relatives, and that’s how he feels.”

Janice said the couple had been told crew’s remains had been discovered and, when they are released, there would be a burial for them all in the Netherlands at a later date.

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