The Search For Sgt. Nairn

One of the stories I relate in The Job To Be Done is that of the fate of one of Dad’s squadron mates from 405 Squadron, an air gunner from Ontario named Ross Nairn. One night over Germany, his Lanc was attacked by a nightfighter and set ablaze. His skipper fought successfully to put the fire out, lose the German fighter, and to save the plane, but Nairn and two of his comrades bailed out of the aircraft in the confusion, thinking their Lancaster was doomed. The two of the three airmen were captured and spent the rest of the war in a P.O.W. camp, not learning until after the war that their skipper had limped home to RAF Gransden Lodge that night minus 3 of his crew and with a wounded tail gunner. The third airmen who jumped, Sgt. Nairn, disappeared into the “fog of war” that night, his fate remaining a mystery to this day.
Soon after the end of the war a body was found in the woods near Homburg, Germany by the Americans, who determined that the young airman, wearing RAF battledress (but, suspiciously, missing his I.D. tags), had been shot in the back of the head with a 9mm pistol, obviously executed after being captured. Sadly, this was not an uncommon occurrence in Nazi Germany, and no one knows how many Allied flyers met this cruel fate. From there the story gets increasingly murky.
When RAF investigators (tipped off by the Americans) returned to the site, aided by a map drawn by one of the Americans, they found nothing – the body that they were convinced was likely that of Sgt. Nairn, was gone.
In The Job To Be Done I postulate that the German culprits had noted the arrival of the Americans and moved the remains after they left, to thwart any further investigation into the crime. However, another story has been uncovered by an intrepid amateur sleuth in Norway, Claudia Fox Reppen, who became intrigued by the Nairn mystery when she read my book. According to some unconfirmed reports and references (that lack sources) that Claudia found, the body belonged not to Ross Nairn, but to an Algerian Free-French airman named Pierre Lugano, whose Lancaster was shot down in the same area, around the same time. According to this narrative, the body was interred briefly by the French authorities (who controlled that area of post-war Germany) in Homburg, and then moved to France where it was entombed with the other members of Lugano’s Lancaster crew.
So it appears, according to this narrative, that the French retrieved the body that the Americans found, and took possession of it, without telling anyone. They determined, somehow, that the body belonged to their airman, and dealt with the remains accordingly. Was this a case of bureaucrats with a list of missing-in-action members of their armed forces who just wanted to cross a name off their list, like an over-eager police detective wanting to close a file, whether he has the right man or not? Or did they have some evidence that proved to their satisfaction that this was their airman – evidence that is is not recorded (or at least remains hidden). Or is the body the French took possession of even the same one that the Americans found? According to some accounts the French offered, at some point, to allow the British to exhume the body for a dental examination, but the British declined. Why in the world would they do that?
Back in Norway, Claudia Fox Reppen (a Canadian ex-pat) continues to dig into the mystery – she is fluent in German and has made contact with a historical society in Homburg, who have agreed to see what they can find in local archives. I wish her the best of luck in solving this sad mystery. Ross Bell Nairn gave his life for a noble cause, and it appears his sad remains are either entombed in France under the wrong name, or lying in a hidden, unmarked grave in a forest near Homburg. He deserves far better.