"An RAF pilot who crashed on D-Day and was hidden from the Nazis for three months by brave French villagers has been honoured in a ceremony in Normandy. Warrant Officer George Martin was seriously injured when his Hawker Typhoon was shot down on June 6, 1944, and was found hanging from a pear tree in St Pierre des Ifs, Normandy, after bailing out. His relatives attended a moving ceremony in the French village to see the unveiling of plaque in his memory. The service was organised by Marie Antionette Lepetouka, whose parents risked their lives to care for the airman, and Michel Picquot, who as a nine-year-old, witnessed the plane crash. W/O Martin was found on June 7 by a farm worker who cut him down and alerted other villagers. He was then covered in tarpaulin and driven by Mr Picquot's mother to a remote barn where he hid for a few days before being taken in by the Lepetouka family. With the help of the French Resistance, he was given a false identity and put up in a spare room to recover from his injuries. Incredibly, during his three month stay, members of the SS arrived and annexed part of the large farmhouse to use as an office, without ever realising the man in the spare bedroom was a downed RAF airman. Had they discovered W/O Martin he would have been captured and interrogated and the Lepetouka family shot or taken to a concentration camp. The unveiling of the plaque came about after a British historian Andrew Boakes stumbled upon the cockpit panel of W/O Martin's Typhoon plane for sale in an antiques shop in Normandy. W/O Martin married sweetheart Phyllis, pictured, after the war and they had three children before moving to Australia in 1952 From there he traced the farmhouse where Marie Antionette Lepetouka, who was 12 in 1944, was still living. He put her in contact with W/O Martin's granddaughter, Georgia Smit. The service also recognised the bravery of the villagers of St Pierre des Ifs for hiding several airmen during the Second World War." www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7375095/The-RAF-pilot-kept-safe-Nazis-brave-French-Family.html
