The young crew members of an RAF bomber that went missing after a raid nearly 80 years ago have been laid to rest together with full military honours.

Pilot, Flying Officer John Harris, 29, from Swindon and his crew took off in their Stirling aircraft BK716 from Downham Market in Norfolk at 9.30pm on March 23 as part of a large scale night time raid on Berlin.

They never made it home. Their aircraft was shot down in the early hours of the following morning by a German nightfighter crewed by Lt Werner Rapp and Unteroffizier Hans Ortmann.

They were posted as missing believed killed and the crash site lay undiscovered for decades until 2008 when their plane was located on the bed of Lake Markermeer, north east of Amsterdam.

It is on a route pilots often took on their way home after a raid

At first there was confusion over the identity of the aircraft, but after it was recovered in 2020 as part of the National World War Two Aircraft Recovery Programme of the Netherlands, it was confirmed from the the number still visible on an engine plate that the wreckage was BK716.

There were very few human remains and what there was could not identify individuals. But all crew members were commemorated in the burial at the Commonwealth Ware Graves Commission cemetery at Jonkerbos in the Netherlands on September 28.

Led by the RAF Honington chaplain Rev Sqn Ldr Josephone Critchley, it included representatives from the RAF, the Canadian Royal Air Force, the British Embassy, relatives of the crew and dignitaries from the area.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission Central and Southern European Director Geert Bekaert said: “It is a privilege for us to care for the lasting resting place at Jonkerbos War Cemetery of those who gave their lives in March 1943.

"Whilst it has not been possible to individually recover and identify them, the names of all seven crew members of RAF Stirling BK716 are engraved on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, honoured there in perpetuity.”

F/O Harris, a reservist, was the son of George and Ada Harris and was married to Mary.

The other crew members were navigator F/O Harry Farrington, 24 RCAF, air gunner F/O John Campbell, 30, bomb aimer Sgt Charles Armstrong Bell, 29, flight engineer Sgt Ronald Kennedy, 22, mid upper air gunner Sgt Leonard Shrubsell, 30 and rear gunner Sgt John McCaw, 20.

They were one of two crews posted missing believed killed in the same raid. BK702 was hit by flak over Germany.

A sculpture dedicated to the men, created by one of their relatives, has been installed in the Bos der Onverzettelijken - Field of the Unyielding) in Almere, close to the lake.

More than 55,500 were killed during the conflict out of a total number of 125,000 Bomber Command air crew.

Most were young men in their late teens and 20s from Britain and the Commonwealth. They were expected to tours of 30 operational flights and many battled stress, fear and fatigue.

As well as the risk of serious physical injury - especially burns - thousands suffered serious mental health issues and some suffered harsh treatment because it was thought they lacked moral fibre.

And if they had to bail out, their chances of survival were not good. Only 25 per cent escaped Stirling aircraft successfully and if they survived landing on the continent with risked being shot if captured by the enemy.