One of York's last surviving Second World War veterans has died at the age of 99.

Douglas Petty, a former RAF flight engineer who flew more than 30 bombing missions, passed away at York Hospital on New Year's Eve. His daughter Margaret was at his side.

Mr Petty's funeral will be held at St Lawrence's Church, York, on January 11 - which would have been his 100th birthday. "We thought that would be a good way to celebrate his life," Margaret said.

Nick Beilby of the York Normandy Veterans Association said Mr Petty had been 'an officer and a gentleman' - and, first and foremost, a friend. He was a 'humble, highly intelligent man who, like other veterans, didn't take any credit for himself but would always pass credit to others,' Nick said.

Originally from County Durham, Douglas Petty was a 20-year-old apprentice mechanic working on Rolls Royce and Bentley cars at a Darlington garage when he volunteered to join the RAF. His twin brother Alan joined the Army.

After training, the young Douglas was assigned as a flight engineer with a Canadian crew from 429 Squadron flying Halifax bombers from RAF Leeming.

Between 1944 and 1945, he flew 31 missions. Most were bombing raids over Nazi-controlled areas - including a daring daylight raid over Normandy on June 10, 1944, in support of the D-Day invasion.

But he and his crew also flew nine operations laying mines in the Norwegian and Baltic fjords.

These were a different kettle of fish to bombing runs, he told an interviewer from the International Bomber Command Centre at the University of Lincoln in 2016 - because the aircraft flew in low, at about 600 feet, which made them tempting targets for German fighter planes.

"You’d be given the target where there was probably.. a German battleship, loitering and hiding, waiting to come out and attack convoys," he told the interviewer.

"We did nine of those, and they were, well, exciting ... because it was on one of those that a (Junkers) JU 88 attacked us.

"He came in from above because we were obviously...flying so low...and the mid upper gunner got him and shot him down."

Casualty rates in Bomber Command were notoriously high - as much as 50 per cent throughout the course of the war - but Mr Petty insisted he was just 'lucky' to have survived.

He had several near misses - 'one or two holes in the fuselage' - and on one occasion some shrapnel embedded itself in the flight engineer's seat where he would normally have been sitting. Fortunately, he was sitting beside the pilot instead.

After the war, he worked as a mechanical engineer at airports in London and Cardiff, before working as an MOT examiner.

He moved to York with his family in 1962, and has lived here ever since - latterly in Stockton Lane.

Margaret said he was a man who would never tell you what to do – instead he would show you.

"There is a photo of me aged four or five, wearing a boiler suit and with a spanner in my hand!"

He insisted on teaching her car maintenance before she learned to drive, she added. "He said 'there's no point having a car if you don't know what makes it go'!"

As well as Margaret, Mr Petty leaves a sister, Helen, and a granddaughter, Samantha.

His funeral will be at 11am on Wednesday January 11 at St Lawrence's Church. All welcome.

Douglas Petty, January 11, 1923- December 31, 2022