The top-secret meeting that helped win D-Day

Some people look at the Galloway Hills in south-west Scotland and see forested ridges and wild lands, glassy-calm lochs and rarely trodden paths. Morris Service, an 81-year-old former Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot and explosives factory engineer, sees stories.

As a child, he was first hooked on tales of bombers and spitfires while hiking with his father in the foothills of Criffel, an isolated summit that dominates the coast of the Solway Firth. Together, they’d encounter aircraft wreckage – bits of LB-30 Liberators, de Havilland DH.98 Mosquitos and twin-engine Ansons – all gleaming and exposed. Most were caught in downdraughts or suffered mishaps after taking off from one of the many RAF stations nearby. For a little boy, it was an aviation history lesson writ large in the heather.

Unearthing the secret side of World War Two is a rush that Service has been chasing ever since. Still today, he scrutinises station records that detail the comings and goings of military personnel to his home county of Dumfries and Galloway, and knows intimate details about 400-plus air crashes involving the training of pilots, gunners and navigators in the area.