WW2 vet dies while visiting country from which he fought 71 years earlier

Apr 2, 2018 9:41 AM PDT

1 minute read

Marvin Rector visiting the Battle of Britain museum shortly before his death. (Photo: Susan Jowers)

Ninety-four-year-old Melvin Rector had one last item on his bucket list: He wanted to return to England where he'd served as a B-17 crewman. So earlier this month he hopped on an airliner and flew across the Atlantic to a place where he'd come of age 71 years earlier.

As reported by Florida Today, Rector was scheduled to visit his former base RAF Snetterton Heath in Norfolk but started the tour at the Battle of Britain Bunker in the Uxbridge area of London that first day.

"He walked out of that bunker like his tour was done," said Susan Jowers, 60, who first met Rector when she served as his guardian during a 2011 Honor Flight trip to Washington, D.C.

As he walked out, Rector told Jowers that he felt dizzy, according to Florida Today. Jowers took hold of one of Rector's arms while a stranger grasped the other.

Rector at his radio operator console aboard at B-17 during a bombing raid. (Photo: Rector family archives)

Rector died quietly there just outside the bunker. When the locals found out about it, they made sure his memory was honored appropriately.

"They just wanted something simple, and when I found out a little background about Melvin, there is just no way that we were just going to give him a simple service," funeral director Neil Sherry told British ITV Network. "We wanted it to be as special as possible."

Though no one knew him, the Royal Air Force, U.S. Air Force and historians in London attended and participated in the funeral with military honors.

"He certainly got a beautiful send-off," Jowers said. "People everywhere, from Cambridge to London heard his story."

U.S. Army Maj. Leif Purcell told ITV he thought he and a few other U.S. military personnel would be the only ones to attend the funeral, but was surprised.

"The representation from the Royal Air Force and the British Army that I saw here was phenomenal," he said.

A funeral service for Rector, a father of six, is set for 11 a.m. June 9 at First Baptist Church of Barefoot Bay, Florida. Jowers told Florida Today that his remains were being repatriated on May 31.

Jowers, who said Rector became like a father to her after their first meeting in 2011, summed up his passing with this thought: "He completed his final mission."