The most decorated airman of the Second World War was finally given a military send-off yesterday - after being missing in action for almost six decades.

The body of North-East-born Wing Commander Adrian Warburton DSO DFC was found in December when the wreckage of his Lockheed F-5 Lightning was discovered in the village of Egling an der Paar, 30 miles north of Munich, Germany.

The 26-year-old, from Middlesbrough, disappeared after taking off from RAF Mount Farm, in Oxfordshire, on April 12, 1944, on a reconnaissance mission.

Wg Cdr Warburton was laid to rest in a Commonwealth war grave, a few miles from where he was shot down and killed 59 years ago.

His fate had remained a mystery ever since he failed to return from the daring reconnaissance mission.

But last year, his crash site and remains were unearthed thanks to years of hard work by aviation researchers.

Yesterday, Warby, as he was affectionately known, was given a long-overdue official funeral with full military honours.

Prior to the burial, at Durnbach Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, a funeral service was held for the 26-year-old flying ace in the impressive Pfarrkirche St Agidius Church, in the small village of Gmund, in the heart of Bavaria.

Among the hundred or so mourners was Warby's widow, Betty Westcott, 91, who spent just a few weeks married to the pilot before he moved to Malta in 1940.

The pair made separate lives and she never heard from him again but wanted to be present yesterday to pay her respects more than half a century on.

Mrs Westcott, who remarried, said: ''It was all such a long time ago and yet it has opened up my life again.

''I wanted to be here today because I felt I should be and it was proper.''

The service was conducted by RAF chaplain the Rev Alan Coates and included poem written by John Snook in 1943 praising Warby's brave deeds in the war effort.

There was also a reading by Air Marshal Sir Roderick Goodall.

Outside the church, members of the Queen's Colour Squadron of the RAF stood vigil next to the hearse containing the pilot's coffin.

The village lies in the shadow of the rugged and tree-lined Bavarian mountainside, providing a memorable setting for the pilot's final resting place.

Wg Cdr Warburton was so highly regarded for his daring aerial antics during the war, he inspired the 1953 film The Malta Story, in which movie legend Alec Guinness played the pilot.

He was christened on board a submarine in the harbour of the Mediterranean island after his birth on Teesside, in 1918, because he was the son of naval Commander George Warburton DSO RN.

There is a section of the Maltese museum dedicated to him for his efforts to keep the island free of Nazi occupation during the Second World War.