French towns honour US pilot killed in liberation

Children waved American flags and young men donned GI uniforms yesterday at ceremonies in two French towns to honour a US pilot whose remains were found 56 years after he went missing in the Second World War.

At La Longueville, near Maubeuge in northern France, William Wyatt Patton Jnr. was honored with a stone memorial that commemorates him as "a gallant hero" who "gave his life for us".

Patton, from Stark City, Missouri, died aged 27 when his P-51 Mustang fighter plane crashed on 15 January 1945. His niece, Connie, travelled from Fairview, Missouri, for the ceremony. She said: "I'm very moved by these signs of friendship. My uncle believed in freedom."

A plaque was also unveiled at a museum in nearby Feignies, where there is an exhibit about the pilot.

Patton's family believed he had plunged into the English Channel. But in 2001, workers draining a field discovered his remains, which were identified through DNA testing and later returned to Missouri.