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Dream Comes True For The Weeping Pensioner Finally Able To Honour His Heroes

Dream Comes True For The Weeping Pensioner Finally Able To Honour His Heroes

The grandfather was brought to tears as thousands joined him to watch fly-past to honour WWII airmen whose memorial he tended for decades

Amelia Jones

Amelia Jones

Need a heartwarming story to get you through your day? This story should give you all the feels - and then some. A military flypast was held on Friday in honour of ten WWII US airmen who died 75 years ago and an 82-year-old who blames himself for their deaths.

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Pensioner, Tony Foulds, was just an eight-year-old boy when he and a group of friends, who were playing in a field, spotted a B-17 Flying Fortress plane overhead.

The American plane was known as 'Mi Amigo' and returning from a planned bombing raid over Europe after a Luftwaffe attack.

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Tony and his friends waved at the approaching plane, but didn't realise it was going to try and make an emergency landing in the field they were standing in at Endcliffe Park, Sheffield.

When they saw the boys in the spot they intended to land on, the plane's heroic crew made a split-second decision to steer away from them and tragically crashed into trees - killing all the courageous airmen on board.

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Grandfather-of-four Tony has confessed that he has blamed himself for their deaths ever since and spent several decades tending a memorial to the brave crew.

A campaign was launched to make his wish come true to honour their memory.

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And when Tony asked for a flypast for the brave men on the 75th anniversary of the deaths - his wish came true with him as the guest of honour.

Speaking on BBC breakfast an emotional Tony said: "I have had a guilty conscience all my life, the guilt has grown more and more over the years.

"The men that saved my life they're my family, they didn't know who anyone of us on the field that day but they chose to save our lives over their own.

"This fly-past is not about me, this is about those brave men who saved my life. I'll never stop visiting the memorial."

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Tony explained that he and the other children were in the park on 22nd February 1944 because boys from two rival junior schools were fighting.

Tony was spotted caring for the memorial by BBC presenter, Dan Walker. Dan was walking his dog earlier this year when he asked the pensioner what he was doing.

Dan shared their exchange online and it instantly won the hearts of the nation.

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It went viral. And the fly-past, which had been a life-long dream of Tony's, was successfully organised along with new steps and a flagpole for the crash memorial.

Today two relatives of the crew members and thousands of other people attended the fly-past involving military aircraft from Britain and the United States.

Both Tony, Dan and many others of the people paying their respects were brought to tears by the moving event.

Crews set off from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, which is home to the largest US Air Force base in the UK.

The men who died that day were named as Pilot Lt John Kriegshauser, pilot from Missouri, 2nd Lt Lyle Curtis, co-pilot from Idaho, 2nd Lt John Humphrey, navigator from Illinois, Melchor Hernandez, bombardier from California, Harry Estabrooks, engineer and gunner from Kansas, Charles Tuttle, gunner from Kentucky, Robert Mayfield, radio operator from Illinois, Vito Ambrosio, gunner from New York, Malcolm Williams, gunner from Oklahoma and Maurice Robbins, gunner from Texas.

Featured Image Credit: SWNS

Topics: Life News, Real