A FORMER North-East airman was finally laid to rest after being entombed in a glacier for almost 60 years.

Pilot officer Henry Talbot, originally from North Shields, was one of four Second World War airmen whose plane crashed into a snow-capped mountain in Iceland.

Yesterday, the four were buried with full military honours in a small graveyard near the Arctic Circle.

The four RAF men have been entombed in a glacier in the north of the country since May 1941, when their Fairey Battle bomber crashed.

Some of their relatives arrived in Iceland on Saturday for the ceremony and were presented with medals yesterday by the British Ambassador to the country, to mark the fliers' service.

Flying Officer Arthur Round, a 26-year-old, from Wellington, New Zealand, the pilot of the ill-fated bomber, died alongside his navigator, Flight Sergeant Reginald Hopkins, 21, from Southampton.

They crashed 28 miles after taking off from Akureyri airport, having collected Pilot Officer Talbot, 24, and Flight Sergeant Keith Garrett, 22, of Worksop, Notts, who had been receiving treatment on a hospital ship.

The brother of Pilot Officer Talbot, John Talbot, 79, of North Shields, said he had been posted missing, presumed dead, the same day his brother was killed.

Their mother received two telegrams on the same day telling of her loss.

"The last time I saw Henry was when we were both home for a week or so during the early part of the war," said Mr Talbot.

"He was flying Lancaster bombers and he looked very happy."

Last week, a mountain rescue team from RAF Kinloss, Morayshire, retrieved the bodies after the wreckage was pinpointed last year as the glacier melted during exceptionally warm weather.

They hacked away at ice on the top of the glacier in the Vaskardular Valley, finding the plane's propeller, a Browning gun and a tail-wheel, as well as the last remains of the men