Bet this is full of heart-breaking stories. "The late Joan Welch, who died in 2020 at the age of 100, was engaged to childhood sweetheart Flight Lieutenant Lester Sanders, of 222 Squadron, who was killed during a test flight in 1942. The 23 year-old had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his gallantry in the defence of Malta which was flattened by the Luftwaffe and Italian air force. Joan, from Hales, near Market Drayton, Shrops, lived close to RAF Tern Hill and found love again with Pilot Officer Ian Smith. They were due to marry when he lost his life in a Spitfire crash in Palestine in 1945. Mercifully, it was third time lucky post-war as she married Phillip Eaton, who she met while working in a council architect's office. She lived to the age of 100 before passing away at a care home in Horsham, West Sussex, in 2020." www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11101939/Woman-reveals-lost-TWO-fianc-s-Spitfire-crashes-WWII.html
