WWII pilot exhumation called off

Flt Sgt Williams served with 46 Squadron of Fighter Command

A bid to exhume the remains of a man who is thought to be the last recoverable Battle of Britain pilot from a site in Kent has been abandoned.

Flt Sgt Eric Williams was 28 when he was shot down on a combat mission over the Thames Estuary on 15 October 1940.

His squadron was attacked by German fighters led by Major Adolf Galland - the leading German ace of the period.

The operation to recover his remains from the site in Albion Parade, Gravesend, was called off on Sunday.

The Ministry of Defence spent three days excavating the area where he crashed but they believe Flt Sg Williams' body is too deep to be reached.

Aerial tribute

A Hawker Hurricane carried out a fly-past over Gravesend at 11am as a tribute to his wartime exploits.

No parachute was sighted when his Hawker Hurricane Mk1 aircraft was shot down close to the banks of the River Thames in 1940.

His aircraft smashed through a timber yard roof and embedded itself deeply into the earthen floor, defying attempts to recover the pilot's body at the time.

Two previous attempts to find his remains failed because the recovery teams were unable to pinpoint the precise location of the crash site.

Ground mapping radar equipment was used to successfully locate the crash site at Albion Parade.

A memorial garden may be be created in the area as a tribute.

Flt Sgt Williams, who was born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, in 1912, was married to Joan Williams at the time of his death.

She remarried and emigrated to Canada after the war.

The Ministry of Defence said the remains of another Battle of Britain pilot were at a location in Chart Sutton, Kent, but there were no plans to disturb the resting place as a memorial garden existed at the crash site.