Who was Francis Thorpe?: Dutch villagers looking for relatives of ‘hero’ Nottingham-born WWII pilot buried in their village
Francis Bernard Thorpe (pictured front row, fourth from right) was born in Nottingham in 1919 before joining the Royal Air Force reserves during the Second World War (Photo Credit: Submitted)
By George Palmer-Soady
An international search has been launched to trace the family of a Nottingham-born Second World War pilot who was buried in the Netherlands after being shot down more than 80 years ago.
Francis Bernard Thorpe was born in Nottingham in 1919 before joining the Royal Air Force reserves around the time of the conflict.
While stationed at Middleton St George in County Durham, Thorpe and 85 others were sent to bomb a factory in Germany on the night of September 6, 1941.
While the mission was successful, 11 RAF bombers were shot down on their way back to England, including The Whitley, containing pilot Thorpe and four other crew members.
All five men died when the aircraft crashed. They were buried three days later at a cemetery in Burgum (previously called Bergum), a village in Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands, with a population of around 10,000 people.
Now, more than 80 years later, a group of Dutch locals there want to find out more about the Nottingham-born pilot and track down any family he has back home.
Siebe Siebenga, 62, works as a postman and lives in Burgum.
He is a member of the local ’80 Years of Liberation’ Committee, which works to honour Mr Thorpe and other men who died in combat.
He now wants to find the pilot’s family so the people of Burgum can get an idea of who he really was, meaning children in the village can better understand local history.
“We need to let our children see how important it is to remember those who died for our freedom,” he told Notts TV.
“We want to bring these people as close as possible to the children – you see names but we want to know more. Where Thorpe lived, what he liked, if he had brothers and sisters.
“The five men killed had such an impact on Burgum. It’s a very small town here and it’s not a big city like Nottingham.
“Every year we go to the graveyard to honour the men, but now we have given them a face again and we want to know more about these people. Mr Thorpe’s a hero of our town.”
In recent months, Siebe and committee members have worked their way through RAF and Commonwealth War Graves archives and databases to find new information.
They have recently unearthed photos and a birth certificate, showing Francis Thorpe was born in Nottingham. But Siebe says the committee has found little else about the pilot, who was just 22 when he died.
He has posted about the search on a local Nottingham Facebook community group – but says he hasn’t heard from any potential relatives yet.
However, Siebe holds out hope and wants to eventually invite Francis Thorpe’s family to Burgum.
He added: “If we are ready and all is done and we have everything then we could invite relatives to come and see what we are doing with the people who died for our liberty. This is very important to us.”
Anyone who has any information about Francis Bernard Thorpe, or his family, is encouraged to get in touch with the committee by sending an email to [email protected].
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