My search for hero father I never knew

He never knew his biological father, Royal Canadian Air Force Flight Sergeant William Brown Gracie, who was killed in action when his aircraft was shot down near a French village during the conflict - just seven days before he was born. Following the tragedy he was adopted by a family in Liverpool when he was months old and it was to be several decades before he discovered the remarkable tale.

Now Mr Cothliff, 71, has written a book telling the story of his father and three other Canadian servicemen, who all served with bomber command, stationed at Yorkshire air bases during the Second World War. Three of the men returned home, albeit their lives changed forever by what they had seen, but Mr Cothliff’s father never came back.

Mr Cothliff, who now lives in Rawdon, Leeds, hopes his book - Under the Maple Leaf - will remind people of the sacrifice made not just by British troops but also those in the Commonwealth.

He said: “There was no mandatory conscription in Canada.

“They chose to serve their country and the British Commonwealth in its time of greatest need. I wanted to tell these stories so people realise the contribution that the Canadians made,” he added.

The idea for the book came from his father’s story but Mr Cothliff, a retired aviation consultant, who used to have an aviation shop and who ran the Yorkshire Air Show for nine years, built up friendships with the three other men whose stories are told in the book through his work.

He says the four were stationed at different bases and came from very different backgrounds but says they all made their contribution to the eventual victory. The book also focuses on Pilot Officer Steven Puskas, Pilot Officer Jim Moffat and Group Captain Reg Lane.

“These stories are deeply personal stories,” Mr Cothliff said. “Len Lane did over 60 operations and he was never injured or wounded. He once had a German shell in his fuel tank but the shell never went off - it was a dud.”

He said the Group Captain was known as “Lucky Lane” and said he was selected to fly over the first Canadian-built Lancaster bomber and he ended up commanding 405 Squadron, Canada’s elite bomber squadron.

Among the other stories told in Under the Maple Leaf, published by Fighting High Publishing, is the bravery of Pilot Officer Jim Moffat who was the sole survivor of a two plane crash which left 13 dead. During the war he also ended up fighting with the French resistance.

Mr Cothliff began looking for information about his biological father when he was in his 30s and once he had his name, service number and the date of his death, pieced together details of his final flight. Born in Scotland, F/Sgt Gracie had emigrated to Canada as a child with his family.

The flight engineer was part of a crew on a 425 Squadron Halifax bomber, which took off from RAF Tholthorpe, near York, on August 5, 1944, targeting a V1 rocket storage and assembly area. The aircraft, nicknamed Allen Cup, was hit and an eyewitness described seeing the wing falling off, before it plunged into woods in France.

Steve Darlow, of Fighting High, said: “Thousands of young Canadians crossed an ocean to fight Nazism and the subjects of Under the Maple Leaf give a valuable insight into what they went through, what they achieved, and the sacrifice they made.”