A HISTORIAN is appealing for help in tracing the roots of two young airmen whose plane was shot down over occupied Europe during the Second World War.

Durham-born navigator Wilfred Nelson and his pilot, Norman Denis Sinclair, from Newcastle, were shot down as they closed in on the Nazi battleship Tirpitz, sister ship of the Bismarck, in the fjords of Norway.

Nelson was killed and Sinclair, then aged 24, was captured by the Germans, spending the rest of the war in Stalag Luft III, the prison camp made famous in the film The Great Escape.

Now Norwegian researcher Hans Olaf Lokken is hoping to retell their story in a book and is searching for people who may know something about the airmen's North-East origins.

Flight Lieutenant Sinclair was born in 1919 and was a veteran of dozens of missions over occupied Europe when he took off in his Mosquito fighter/bomber in March 1943 from an RAF base in Scotland, joined by 31-year-old navigator Flying Officer Nelson.

However, during the mission they were intercepted by two Messerschmitts over Skatval, near Trondheim, in Norway, and were hit by machine-gun fire.

Nelson was peppered with bullets and was later found dead in the wreckage of the plane.

Sinclair passed out but, with the plane hurtling towards the ground, he came to only moments before impact and parachuted to safety.

The pilot then tried to make it to the safety of Sweden. He was sheltered at a nearby farmhouse by Jon Tuset, who gave him cognac and a bed for the night, but was captured the following day and flown to a prison camp in present-day Poland.

He was there in March 1944 when the Great Escape took place, drawing lots with his comrades to determine which prisoners should go down the tunnel.

His number did not come up, although Denis Street - the twin brother of Sinclair's future wife Nancy - did get under the wire and was among the 50 recaptured prisoners executed by the Germans.

After the war, Sinclair married Nancy, and the pair started a plant nursery in Surrey, before moving to Australia in 1959, where he worked as a clerical officer and a flying instructor in Perth before his death in February 1987.

His comrade is buried at Stavne Churchyard, in Trondheim.

Mr Lokken said: "The pilot and his family are almost like a citizen of our own town.

"He had been in the sky above us several times, like an angel high up in the air, like a constant messenger of peace and expected freedom.

"He lost his navigator and he almost lost his life for us."

Anyone who has information on Flight Lieutenant Sinclair or Flying Officer Nelson can contact Mr Lokken via The Northern Echo office in Durham on 0191-384 2261.