Overview
- Engineers building a canal at Oisy-le-Verger in northern France uncovered Hurricane P3535 with the pilot seated upright in the cockpit.
- The Ministry of Defence team identified the airman by ruling out three other RAF pilots lost the same day after DNA links from Fidler’s family proved impossible.
- An earlier assumption about his resting place was overturned when a 2006 dig found the supposed crash site was Flying Officer James Strickland’s, not Fidler’s.
- The Bachy grave once thought to be his now bears the inscription “unknown airman,” and a full RAF burial is set for May 19 at the London Cemetery and Extension near Longueval.
- The finding resolves a long-running mystery from the Battle of France and offers closure to relatives and his home community, even as many British war dead remain untraced.