A YOUNGSTER wore his great-grandad’s medals with pride at a ceremony in France to mark the 70th anniversary of the night he was shot down over Normandy.

Flight Sgt Arthur Hulmes was one of 10 people — seven flight crew and three civilians — killed when his Lancaster Bomber crashed on to a remote farm during the Second World War.

And to mark the 70th anniversary of the disaster, Joshua Hunt, 11, travelled with his mum, Paula Hunt, and her partner Lee Almond, to be guests of honour at a memorial unveiling in La Vespiere last week.

The group were guests of the village’s mayor and also visited the crash site and nearby cemetery near Lisieux, where the crew is buried.

Joshua, of Lynwood Avenue, Darwen, said: “I had been looking forward to this for a long time and it made me really proud to be wearing the medals.”

Mum Paula said: “It was a very moving ceremony for everyone and Joshua was fantastic.

“He is so proud of his great-grandfather so for him to wear his medals at such a poignant occasion was important to him.”

Father-of-one Arthur, 25, was shot down as his crew returned home from a bombing raid over Milan, Italy.

A couple of weeks earlier, he had been able to spend precious time with his wife, Lilian, and their new-born baby daughter.

Ten years after the war, his widow, Lilian, met and married Richard Davies, of Blackburn, and they lived in Clifton Street. She died in 1970.

Baby Linda grew up to marry Alan Harwood, of Darwen, and Paula is their daughter.

La Vespiere is a village in the Calvados area of the Basse-Normandy region of north-west France. It has a population of just under 1,000, according to the census of 2009.