The personal belongings of a Canadian World War II pilot killed overseas have been returned to his family after they were discovered during a criminal investigation in the United Kingdom.
Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) said the pilot, Gilbert Frederick Brown, had been killed in a mid-air collision in 1943.
Some of his belongings were not collected from the crash site at that time, the DND said in a July 4 news release. The personal items then became part of a criminal investigation connected to the illicit excavation of World War II crash sites in the UK.
Following the investigation, officials with the UK military returned the artefacts to Canada, DND said. The Directorate of History and Heritage was able to locate some of Brown’s family, who are now living in the United States….