Fitting end for war hero

The most decorated pilot of the war, renowned for the daring of his low-flying reconnaissance missions, he went missing in action while on an American sortie over southern Germany on April 12, 1944.

His fate remained shrouded in mystery until aviation investigators unearthed his remains from a German field, in November 2002.

He was buried last month with full military honours, not far from where he was found. Among the mourners from around the world was Warby's friend and squadron colleague, Stroud resident Jack Vowles.

David Gibbs and Fletcher Brown met with Mr Vowles to learn more about the life and times of one of Britain's greatest pilots. ..

Mention the names Douglas Bader and Guy Gibson and an expression of recognition will spread across the faces of most people.

The decorated second world war flying aces were heroes of an extraordinary generation and their stories are well told - Bader's stubborn determination to defy the loss of his legs in an horrific plane crash and fly again, and Gibson's dambuster exploits are the stuff of national legend.

Mention the name Adrian Warburton and you are more likely to be met with blank stares as mental files marked "History of World War II" are found wanting.

Bader, Gibson and Warburton were alumni of the same Oxford school of St Edward's. Yet the latter remains the least popularly heralded of the three, despite being the most decorated pilot of the war for his daring low-flying reconnaissance missions over North Africa, Germany and Italy, during which he shot down nine enemy planes.

His actions earned him three Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Distinguished Service Orders and the American equivalent of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

On April 12, 1944, aged 26, Wing Commander Warburton took off from Oxford in a Lockheed Lightning F-5B on an American reconnaissance mission over Germany. He did not return.

Missing in action for 60 years, rumours abounded his disappearance was deliberate. But in November last year, painstaking investigations by aviation experts finally led to the discovery of the remains of the great pilot, buried alongside the main fuselage of his plane in a field at Eglin, some 30 miles south of Munich.

He had been shot down in flames by anti-aircraft guns. Warby, as he was affectionately nicknamed, was buried on May 14 with full military honours in Germany's Durnbach Commonwealth War Cemetery - not far from where his plane came down.

More than 100 mourners from the UK, America and Germany gathered to bid a belated farewell to the flying ace.

They included his widow Betty Westcott, former Luftwaffe airmen and 81-year-old Stringers Close resident Jack Vowles, who served alongside Warby in the Malta-based RAF 69th Squadron, as a flight engineer, between 1940 and 1943.

Mr Vowles, whose testimony is to be included in a BBC Timewatch documentary about Warburton, to be screened this September, remembers him vividly and is relieved the speculation about the nature of his demise has been laid to rest.

He said: "All these years have gone and I tried to find out what happened. They thought he suffered from depression and deliberately crashed his plane into a glacier or the sea but when people said that to me, I replied "Never". He would always do the job, get the information and come back. That was his life's work."

The pair's friendship blossomed in Malta after the then 23-year-old Warburton asked Vowles, 20, to work on his American-made long-range reconnaissance Maryland AR733 plane.

"He wanted his plane to fly 15 to 20 knots faster so he could better escape the German aircraft that would chase him when he flew. By various tweakings, not officially in the manuals, I got it to go a little bit faster, which helped him considerably," he explained.

Middlesborough-born Warburton flew more than 350 operational missions from Malta alone, once undertaking three consecutive 240-hour tours of duty.

He was described by Lord Tedder, who would become Marshal of the Royal Air Force, as "the most valuable pilot in the RAF."

His work helped defend Malta and boosted the North African campaign, while his reconnaissance film of Taranto paved the way for the sinking of the Italian fleet in November 1940 - described by Winston Churchill as "a crippling blow".

His prodigious performances earned him exceptional autonomy from the top brass. They turned a blind eye to the conventional dress he chose to wear on duty, and tolerated his decision to live off base with his glamorous dancer girlfriend Christina Ratcliffe.

"He was virtually a law unto himself because he was such a brilliant man and brought back such valuable information. Even Churchill said he helped shorten the war," said Mr Vowles.

The fact Warburton was already married to Hampshire barmaid Betty Westcott was also of little consequence, as Mr Vowles explained.

"Betty was a barmaid he married in a registry office. They were together just three days before he went off to station in the UK. He was only a boy. It was just one of those things that happened. I don't think it meant anything. She never saw him again.

"When he got to Malta there was a magnetic attraction with Christina. She could unwind him from all the tensions he had. She looked after him. By the time he came up to the aerodrome each morning, he was up to any mission given to him.

"My greatest difficulty was meeting Betty at the funeral because I knew she was going to ask about Christina and my fear was what I was going to say, but it all worked out fine. Betty Westcott married twice more in the years following her husband's disappearance and recently returned to England from Australia.

But Warby's soul mate Christina died in 1988. "At the funeral I laid a flower at his grave from Christina. No-one else thought about it, but I did. She never came back to Britain. She was waiting for him there," he said.

At the close of 1943, Warburton was travelling in Tunisia when an American lorry collided with his jeep, leaving his pelvis shattered and his glittering flying career in the balance. Escaping from hospital through a window, he was ordered by the Americans to return to Britain for RAF medical officers to deliver a verdict on his flying future.

It was not a happy one. Warburton was deemed unfit to fly and given three months sick leave.

Unable to contemplate a life out of the skies, Warburton headed for the American airbase at Benson and Mount Farm, run by his friend Col Elliot Roosevelt, son of US president Franklin D, where he declared himself on leave, omitting the word sick, and available to fly reconnaissance sorties.

"Reconnaissance was his life work. He didn't want to do anything else. Sitting in a small cockpit with a smashed pelvis on a long range reconnaissance missions over Germany must have been absolute agony, but he still did it," said Mr Vowles.

Photographs from Warburton's sorties soon drew the attention of RAF scanning expert Constance Babington-Smythe who was so impressed by the work she requested to know whose it was.

On discovering it was the medically unfit to fly Warburton the RAF issued a stern message demanding the American's withdraw the ace from flight duty with immediate effect.

Delivered just an hour after Warburton had taken off on that fateful April day, it came too late to save him.

Reflecting on his friend's death, Jack Vowles takes comfort in the knowledge the great pilot died doing what he did best.

"Had he survived and gone on to be demobbed what would he have done? He was a rebel and had no qualifications," he said.

"At last I know where he is and if I wish to pay my respects to him at any time I can now go and do it."