CAN readers help Mrs Anne Storm find relatives of East Lancashire airman killed in the same wartime action as her Australian father -- so that they can have the opportunity to attend a 60th-anniversary commemoration service in South Africa next year honouring the crews of six planes lost on an ill-fated mission?

Mrs Storm, of Ramsbury in Wiltshire, is searching for family of RAF Flight Sergeant Leonard Whalley, who originated from Blackburn and was killed when the Liberator bomber, like the one pictured, that he and seven others were aboard crashed in northern Italy in October, 1944, while dropping supplies to partisans.

Sgt Whalley was attached to the South African Air Force which was based at the time at Celone, Foggia, Italy, having had its ranks supplemented by RAF men following the heavy losses its squadrons suffered the previous August on supply missions to help the Warsaw uprising.

Says Mrs Storm: "Twenty Liberators, each with eight crew from 31 and 34 Squadrons, flew on the mission to supply partisan groups. The weather turned bad, with poor ground visibility.

"Five of the planes crashed and another, on which my Flying Officer father was the bomb aimer, disappeared. The wrecks of the five planes were eventually found -- the one Sgt. Whalley flew in crashed near the hillside village of Ostana in northern Italy --but the one my father was in was never recovered. "

She adds: "A friend in South Africa whose brother was a crewmate of Sgt Whalley on the same plane has asked for my help with regards to the commemoration event and I am trying to contact relatives of the lost airmen who may like to attend. I have researched my father's disappearance for two years and found relatives of all his crew and two families of RAF men on another crashed plane.

If you can help Mrs Storm, contact her at 3 Orchard Close, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2RQ. Tel. 01672-520575. E-mail: storm04@globalnet.co.uk