More than 50 years after his death on a bombing mission, the French have refused to forget a Sussex air gunner.

Now they want to find his family, whose last known address was in Hove, to invite them to a special memorial event in his honour.

It was on April 2, 1942, that the bomber carrying Sergeant Bernard Shepherd, of the 150th Squadron of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, was shot down in Andrsy, near Paris, in Nazi-occupied France.

Despite the efforts of a group of nearby villagers who rushed to try to rescue the crew from the burning wreckage, only Warrant Officer Christopher Maltby survived.

However, he was badly injured and the villagers had no choice but to take him to hospital, where he was treated and then sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. The remains of the other crew members, including Sgt Shepherd, were buried in the local cemetery.

The crash site, to the annoyance of the occupying forces, became a shrine for the local people.

As well as transferring the graves to Les Gonards cemetery in nearby Versailles in 1946, the villagers built a memorial on the crash site with the names of those who perished there, which WO Maltby visited in 1989.

However, interest in the memorial then dropped and it fell into disrepair until a Frenchman, retired parachute regiment officer Bernard Chabards, came to its rescue.

With the help of local people and members of an ex-servicemen's association, the Union des Anciens Combattants, Mr Charbards has returned the site to its former condition and wants surviving members of Sgt Shepherd's family to come to a major remembrance event on May 9.

Military historian Howell Williams is helping with the search.

He said: "We know he was the son of Harry and Evelyn Grace Shepherd, and the wife of Joan May Shepherd, who lived in Hove at the time.

"I think members of his family would be very proud to see the memorial."

Anyone who can help should call Mr Williams on 01780 450190.