A SPITFIRE pilot who was tragically killed during the Second World War will be honoured with a memorial by the son of an Enfield woman he hoped to marry.

Sgt Pilot Frank Waller was killed on December 14 1939 but his fiancee, 89-year-old Betty Walker, has kept a photograph of him for more than seven decades to remind her of the man she had hoped to marry.

Now her son, Michel Walker, who lives in Texas, USA, is creating a flying scale model of a Spitfire in memory of Sgt Waller and as a lasting memorial to his mother’s one time love.

He said: "My mother always talks about him and has a little twinkle in her eye.

“We’ve spent three years on this and it has become a matter of honour and of how detailed we can make the model.

“I grew up with stories of World War Two and the stories of the honourable things people did - this seemed the right thing to do.”

Sgt Waller was engaged to Betty but was persuaded by her father to delay marriage until after the war. But he was killed when his plane is believed to have hit a hillside.

After the war, Betty married and moved to Canada and then the United States, raising son Michel and a daughter Kim. But despite the years that have passed, she still thinks of what life might have been like had Frank Waller lived.

When complete, the quarter sized model of Sgt Waller’s plane will be flown, but is likely then to be kept in a museum.

Mr Walker, 55, an air force man himself who also worked for NASA on the space shuttle programme, wants to dedicate a brass plaque to accompany the model in the memory of Sgt Waller.

He is appealing for anyone with any more information or photographs about Sgt Waller and his plane to help him recreate his detailed replica.

"If I can find any old existing photographs it would be nice. I want to make it as close as humanly possible,” he said.

Mr Walker said he had huge respect for the men who gave their lives in the air.

“We would all be speaking German if it wasn't for them. I just can't have enough respect for what those men did. Somebody has died here to protect the freedoms that I have grown up with. It’s an amazing thing.”

Do you have any information about Sgt Waller and his Spitfire. email enfieldnews@london.newsquest.co.uk