Family wartime history prompted two Devon couples to independently visit an aviation history museum to honour VE Day 80.

Here they bumped into each other and exchanged stories of family members who served and died in World War Two.

To mark the eightieth anniversary of victory in Europe, Mike Harwood and his wife Carol, from Buckland Monachorum, visited the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre in East Kirkby– home of one of the few remaining WWII Lancaster bomber aircraft.

The couple stayed at the famed ‘Dambusters’ 617 Squadron’s officers’ mess.

There they met Chris and John Beare, from Kingsbridge, who were researching the wartime RAF service of Chris’s uncle who died when his Lancaster bomber crashed in France during a WWII raid.

The Dambusters and their brave crews were immortalised in a popular film about the dangerous WWII operation flying Lancaster bombers in an attack on German power generation dams, crucial to the enemy’s war industry.

Mike said: “We met Chris and John at the former officers’ base of the Dambusters, which is now a hotel. They told us of the loss of her uncle (on her mother's side) Flight Sergeant Dennis William Blumfield who was a navigator with 49 Squadron.

“He died in a crash in a field over France in 1944, aged of 21 whilst on a mission to attack the rail junction at Revigny. Remains of the Lancaster are still being found to this day.”

Mike’s interest in the Lancaster started many years ago: “Walking around the hangar gave me a sense of pride and compassion for the bravery of the Lancaster crews.

“Seeing things like the bent and twisted propellers from crash landings and the bouncing bomb it was like a sentimental journey to walk through the door and see this iconic aircraft being restored by dedicated people.”

Chris spoke of the moving visit to the graves and crash site of her uncle and his air crew and of her mother’s grieving for her brother: “I grew up seeing the enormous impact the loss of her only brother had on my mum. I had read letters exchanged by my grandmother and the parents of the other crew members supporting each other whilst waiting for more confirmation about their sons.

“Also letters from the mayor of Granges-sur-Aube at the time assuring her villagers would care for the graves in the church graveyard. It is hard to describe how moving it was to visit the graves of my uncle and the rest of his crew in the village where their Lancaster bomber had crashed.

“It was a mixture of respect and connection to an uncle I never got to meet as well as a very emotional reminder of how he lost his life.

“We were able to meet and thank the lady from the village who cared for the war graves and always made sure they had fresh flowers placed on them.”

Her most emotional moment was at the crash site: “To stand in a field, now full of sunflowers, and walk between the rows of flowers still finding fragments of wreckage coming to the surface after 60 years was profoundly emotional.”