THE niece of a Second World War RAF hero who “saved” a Dutch village made a poignant visit to the scene of his death to see a new memorial created in his honour.

Jenny Wilkins, aged 71, of Hagley, took a trip to Noorbeek, a village close to the border of Belgium and Germany, to be part of a service commemorating her uncle John Smith.

On February 8, 1945, the ill-fated airman lost his life after crashing his shot down plane into a nearby field, narrowly missing the village.

He was buried in the military cemetery in Venray, Holland, but the residents of Noorbeek have marked 70 years since the crash by creating a memorial in John’s name.

Jenny said: “Just three weeks before the anniversary of my uncle’s death, a Dutch lady living in Lincolnshire got in contact with our local history society group.

“She wanted to contact the relatives of J.B.J [John] Smith to let us know that the villagers wanted to create a memorial and if we could go.

“It sort of snowballed from there and within three weeks the village had the whole event sorted out to mark 70 years to the date that my uncle came down.

“While we were there we were treated like royalty. They were so welcoming.

“We were invited into their homes and the whole village turned out for the service including the mayor and agricultural minister.

“They were so grateful that we had actually gone and it was really nice to hear their stories and the lovely things they had to say about my uncle.

“According to witnesses the plane was on fire as it fell from the sky and it was coming towards the village but luckily my uncle diverted it away from them, saving the villagers.”

Jenny, a retired teacher for the deaf at Redhill School, still lives in the family house in which her uncle, a former pupil of King Edward VI Grammar School in Stourbridge, grew up in.

She said: “I was 14 months old at the time he died, but my family did not speak much about it and all they told me was that he had been shot down.

“My family didn’t know he had died until 1946, before that they had just been told he was missing.

“It was his first trip as a volunteer, but it was also unfortunately his last.”