War Heroes Remembered In Flypast
22 February 2019, 11:13 | Updated: 22 February 2019, 11:31
Huge crowds have gathered to watch a pensioner see his lifelong dream fulfilled when a special flypast took place to mark the 75th anniversary of a crash.
Tony Foulds was just eight years old on February 22 1944 when he saw a B-17 Flying Fortress, nicknamed Mi Amigo, crash as it apparently veered away from him and his friends in Sheffield's Endcliffe Park as it returned from a bombing raid.
Wreaths have been laid at the Cambridge American Cemetery, where three of the airmen who died in a plane crash in 1944, are buried.
Some of the vast crowd arrived at the Sheffield park at dawn on Friday, with some bringing picnics and others wearing Second World War outfits.
Mr Foulds had previously said of the airmen: "If it hadn't of been for them, I wouldn't be here with my family."
"It's more than bravery, what they did. They saved me, and I mean saved me."
Mr Foulds waved as the planes started to fly over, making his dream come true some 75 years after the crash.
Shortly before the flypast started, he said: "This is not for me, it's for them... my lads.
"They're family, they are family to me."
Overcome by emotion, Mr Foulds wiped away tears as he reacted to the flypast.
He said: "Thank you, I can't believe all this. This is unbelievable to me."
A crowd of thousands of people in Endcliffe Park, Sheffield, cheered following the flypast on Friday morning.
#TonyGotAFlyPast was top trend on Twitter in the United Kingdom after the flypast took place.
He added: "It's taken 75 years for them to be remembered and what a day, what a day to remember them."
Mr Foulds said that his only wish now is to travel to the United States to meet some of the crew's families.
