Yorkshire Air Museum flypast for war hero Robert 'Mac' McClements

Robert 'Mac' McClements, a mid-upper gunner on a Halifax bomber, flew 38 missions with No 10 Squadron based at RAF Melbourne - many of them just before and after the Normandy invasions.

On one occasion, he and a fellow crew member were forced to use an axe to cut free a bomb which had got jammed in the aircraft's bomb rack following manoeuvres to avoid enemy ack-ack fire.

On another occasion, their Halifax iced over, and began to plummet out of the sky.

It plunged towards the ground, and it was only as the aircraft got warmer as it fell that the pilot and co-pilot were able to haul it out of its dive by standing on the control panel and pulling back on the stick.

"They skimmed the top of the Zuider Zee," said Mr Clements' son, also called Robert. "They got home, but the wings were bent from the G-forces and that plane never flew again."

In 2017, at the age of 92, Mr McLements was presented with France's highest military honour, the Légion d’Honneur, in a ceremony at the Yorkshire Air Museum.

The flypast at 2.45 pm on June 11 (weather permitting) will coincide with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque in Mr McClements' honour in the museum's memorial gardens by Wing Commander MP Westwood, the Chairman of the RAF 10 Squadron Association, in what family stress will be a private occasion.

Robert said his father was a quiet, determined, resourceful man who was always modest about his wartime service.

He would have been 'astonished' at the fuss being made, Robert said.

Mr McClements widow Iris, 95, who now lives in Leeds, said her husband had come over from Ireland, where there was no conscription, to join in the war effort.

"He could have stayed out of (the war)," she said.

Iris, who grew up living on a boat - the Catherine Rose - on the river in York, served in the Royal Observer Corps at York Racecourse during the war.

"So war brought us together," she said. "We met 78 years ago."After the war, the couple married at Fulford church and remained in England.

Robert said the hurricane and spitfire which will fly over the museum on June 11 will be making a special diversion in honour of his father while en route to a Battle of Britain Memorial Flight event in Teesside.

Robert Mac McClements during the war

As well as the plaque unveiling, the ceremony in the Yorkshire Air Museum's memorial garden will include the presentation of the RAF Association colours, a recitation of the poem ‘We will remember him’ and a performance of The Last Post by Oliver Abbey of the York Railway Institute Band.