‘Athletic, extroverted and popular’ – Meet the hero Mi Amigo pilot who sacrificed himself to save children’s lives in Sheffield plane crash?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

All 10 crew aboard the badly damaged B-17 Flying Fortress, known as Mi Amigo, were killed when it plummeted from the skies and crashed into Endcliffe Park on February 22 1944.  

The aircraft was hit during a bombing raid over Europe and was returning back to base in the UK when it got into difficulty over the skies of Sheffield.  

The story goes that the aircraft was preparing for an emergency landing on the field in the park, but upon witnessing Tony Foulds, then aged just eight, and his friends veered off and crashed into woods to avoid landing on them. 

Pilot lieutenant John Kriegshauser was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross for minimising loss of life.

A heartfelt letter written by Lt. Kriegshauser after he joined the war effort has now emerged. 

Knowing that he might not make it back safe, he told his family that "this is a letter which I hope is never mailed."

He added: “My final word is that I'm glad to have been able to lay down my life for a cause I believed was just and right."

The account has been included in numerous reports carried by newspapers based in America, including high-profile publications such as the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.  

Lt. Kriegshauser, from St. Louis, Missouri, was aged just 23 when he died in the crash. 

He had enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and served as a radio operator, before being selected for pilot training after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

Family members described him as an ‘athletic, extroverted and popular’ young man besotted by the romance of aviation after Charles Lindbergh's historic 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic.

Mr Foulds, now a grandfather-of-four of Lowedges, developed feelings of guilt over the crash and spent several decades tending to a memorial in the park. 

The 82-year-old successfully campaigned for a military flypast to mark 75 years since the tragedy that was watched by thousands of people last Friday.