Efforts are continuing to solve an 82-year-old puzzle surrounding the last resting place of a Castle Douglas war hero.
Squadron Leader Patrick Gifford was shot down over Belgium by a German fighter plane on May 16, 1940, and died when his Hurricane crash-landed in a field.
It’s thought the 30-year-old’s body was retrieved from the wreckage – but the location of his grave remains shrouded in mystery.
Now, after more than two decades’ work, researcher Gordon MacKerracher believes an unnamed memorial stone in a British war cemetery to be that of the lost flier.
So far the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has ruled his findings inconclusive – and without further evidence will keep the case closed.
But Gordon, 66, is refusing to give up – and believes new information supplied by the grandson of a Royal Engineer with the 262nd Field Company could prove crucial.
He said: “His grandfather was stationed in the area at the time and saw a British aeroplane coming down and crash landing at a place called Herzele.
“He rushed to help, forced open the cockpit and together with another sapper took the badly burnt body to the churchyard at Ressegem where it was handed over to the parish priest for burial.
“The Germans were advancing quickly and the body was interred without any insignia or uniform – possibly to avoid him being identified as a British pilot and claimed as a trophy.
“Initially the stone cross at the grave was inscribed with the name Ashworth – but no-one of that name could be traced.
“The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) removed that name from the cross and the records.
“The stone was removed from the graveside and laid against a wall – it is still there to this day.
“The body was exhumed and re-interred at the British War Cemetery at Heverlee, near Brussels, in 1954.
“But the inscription on the cross there only states ‘An airman of the 1939-1945 war. Royal Air Force May 16th, 1940.’”
Together with colleagues in Belgium, Gordon investigated records of all other aircraft shot down in the area around that time.
And by a process of elimination they felt the crash site could only be Pat Gifford’s Hurricane.
A photograph of a the plane’s wing tip lying in a field along with other wreckage was another clue.
Gordon, from Ratho near Edinburgh, said: “I was in the field and the cartographer could tell us the exact place where the wing was lying.
“Herzele Council are putting up the funds to excavate the site to see if any more of the aircraft remains.
“We are hoping to get the CWGC’s agreement that the unmarked grave at Heverlee is where Patrick Gifford is buried.
“I want his name to be inscribed on that memorial in acknowledgment for what he did in the Second World War.
“I know in my heart we have found the last resting place of Patrick Gifford DFC, a lost son of Castle Douglas.”
He added: “After 22 years I’m a wee bit impatient.
“We are as close as we are ever going to get.”
Patrick Gifford was a solicitor in Castle Douglas before the war and took his squadron to France to fight in 1940.
He was the first auxiliary to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), the first auxiliary to become a squadron leader in the RAF and the first pilot to shoot down a German bomber over Scotland.
His name lives on in Castle Douglas to this day with Gillespie, Gifford and Brown, Solicitors.
His log book is with the National Museum of Scotland.
