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From the Echo, first published Tuesday 29th Oct 2002.

HE was shot down over France, helped by the French Resistance and took on the identity of a Spanish farm labourer to foil the Nazis in occupied France.

And while toiling on a farm Sgt James Pennie met a young French woman.

Decades later that same woman, Madame Paulette Sibout, happened to meet Wareham man Howard Frampton, who was in Normandy on a twinning association visit.

She asked him if he would be able to find out what had happened to that RAF radio operator with whom she had lost contact after the war.

And Mr Frampton, 72, took up the detective trail.

"Several people had tried in the past so it was quite a challenge," he said.

The story began on June 3 1944 when James Pennie was on board a Halifax bomber shot down by the Germans when flying back from a successful bombing mission targeting a railway complex at Trapp, near Paris.

He and five of the crew managed to parachute out of the stricken plane.

Some were captured but James and mid-gunner Ralph Gilbert were lucky to chance upon a local family willing to help.

They were interrogated by the local French Resistance leader who, when convinced they were British, kissed them on the cheeks and toasted them saying "Vive les Anglais!" and "Vive la France!"

Pennie and Gilbert were handed fake Spanish passports, assuming the roles of a farm labourer and woodcutter, and worked on the farm where Sgt Pennie followed the war's progress on an old radio he repaired and where he met the young Paulette.

After the war ended the British airman and Paulette lost contact but she often wondered what had become of him.

"Her husband, who had helped the Resistance, died after the war," said Mr Frampton.

"If the Germans had found out they were helping British airmen they would have been shot. They were very brave."

Others before Mr Frampton had tried to track down James Pennie without success.

But his research led him to several military associations and the RAF Personnel Management Agency, who agreed to forward a letter from Mr Frampton to an old address near Aberdeen that they held.

"The address did prove somewhat different but an alert postman remembered Mrs Pennie, a retired headmistress, and the letter was delivered."

Ten days later he received a reply from Mrs Pennie telling him the sad news her husband had died from a stroke six years earlier.

He had served for 30 years as a radio officer in the Merchant Navy after leaving the RAF.

Mr Frampton passed the news on to Mme Sibout who was pleased he had made contact with James Pennie's widow but, like Mr Frampton, was saddened by his death.

"After following up the story of the brave guys who were the aircrew of the Halifax, I would like to have met Sergeant James Pennie," he added.

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