Civilians and military personnel remembered three Britons and four Germans in an act of rededication near York.

The service commemorated the crew of the last German aircraft to crash on British soil during the Second World War and three civilians living the house into which it fell.

The ceremony took place after the memorial to the seven was moved from a more appropriate site near the new home of York Maze at Dunnington Lodge Farm, Elvington.

The Junkers 88G-6 NJG3 aircraft crashed into Dunnington Lodge Farm, then the home of the Moll family, close to RAF Elvington in the early hours of March 4, 1945, as it was mounting an attack on the airfield.

At 10.30am the same day, Philip Bean, now of Heworth, was one of a group of boys cycling past the farmhouse on their way to local daffodil woods. They noticed the wreck in the farmhouse ruins, but cycled on. It wasn’t the first crashed aircraft they had seen.

“Over the years, I got to thinking I must have imagined it,” said Mr Bean. Then he visited Elvington Air Museum, saw the display about the aircraft and its crash. The display and the plaque made in memory of the seven reassured him he had seen what he saw.   

The Flightpath of Friendship Reconciliation worked with senior RAF officers, the Royal British Legion, local civic dignitaries, priests and others to move the memorial to its new location.

Bridlington Air Force Cadets marched past at the start of the rededication and Air Commodore Adam Sansom, RAF regional air officer North England, said the response before the memorial was unveiled.

Other VIPs attending included the Lord Mayor of York, Cllr Margaret Wells and her consort Paul Midgley and the East Riding of Yorkshire Council Vice Chairman Cllr Liam Dealtry and his lady Michelle Dealtry and  military and diplomatic representatives.

The Coventry Cathedral Cross of Nails was placed at the memorial and wreaths were laid.

The memorial commemorates Hauptman Johann Dreher, Oberfeldwebel Hugo Boker and Feldwebels Gustav Schmitz and Martin Bechter of the German Luftwaffe and Richard Moll, his wife Ellen and his daughter-in-law Violet Moll of Dunnington Lodge.