A wartime air ace has died just weeks after meeting up with a German bomber pilot he shot down.

Edward Lawley McMillan, known as Peter, was visited in May by Willi Schludecker.

Mr Schludecker was on a raid on July 23/24 1942, when his Bedford-bound Dornier was hit over Kent by cannon fire from a Beaufighter with 26-year-old Mr McMillan at the controls.

The Luftwaffe pilot, then 21, managed to stay airborne and, after limping back across the Channel, crash-landed his wrecked bomber in Holland.

He was so badly injured he spent six months in hospital, yet despite the agonising pain and discomfort, Mr Schludecker believed Mr McMillan, from Hove, saved his life.

The German explained: "The way I see it Peter actually saved my life because if I hadn't been put in hospital I would have been back up in the skies the next night, and who knows what would have happened?"

The pair met each other for the second time at Shoreham Airport in 2000, having been reunited by Cleveland war historian Bill Norman, who put together the pieces of the puzzle by studying the pilots' flight logs.

At May's meeting in the Queen Alexandra-Hospital Home, Boundary Road, Worthing, Mr Schludecker presented Mr McMillan with a framed picture of the wrecked Dornier as a memento.

Mr McMillan died at Southlands Hospital, Shoreham, aged 91, leaving a widow, Mollie, 89, two children, Netta, 64, and Nigel, 60; five grandchildren Charlotte, 20, Andrew, 18, Rupert, 36, Victoria, 32, and Claire, 38, and two great grandchildren, Daniel, five, and David, almost three.

Nigel said his father and Mr Schludecker became firm friends.

He said: "They were very fond of each other. My father was very interested to meet the person he had been fighting against and was very pleased he had survived.

"He just said: 'I was a better shot than you', but they recognised each other's skills."

In 2000, Mr McMillan said: "There was never really any personal hatred between us. We were young men doing our duty. My memories are of excitement and adventure. We were doing the same job on different sides."

A memorial service is being held tomorrow (Friday) at All Saints Church, The Drive, Hove, at 4pm. The family has requested no flowers, but donations can be made to the RAF Benevolent Fund.

Mr Schludecker cannot attend but plans to visit and pay his respects in August.

Mr McMillan, who was a regular contributor to the letters' pages of The Argus, was born in Canada but returned to England at an early age and was educated at Christ's Hospital, Horsham.

He was a Brighton magistrate between 1969 and 1986, and served as a councillor for Stanford ward, Hove, on East Sussex County Council, from 1979 to 1987.

Mr McMillan was vice-president of Hove Squadron ATC and edited the All Saints Church parish magazine.

Pay your tributes to Mr McMillan below.