THERE is a long pause when I ask Vickie Werbicki whether she ever got over losing Andrew Mynarski, her boyfriend of eight years, in a fatal wartime mission when he was just 27.

It is a personal, painful question to ask someone in any circumstance, but particularly when they are sitting more than 4,000 miles away, across the Atlantic, on the other end of a telephone line.

"No," she eventually replies, her voice faltering with emotion, yet sounding far younger than her 83 years. "Time is a big healer and, as the years go by, it helps. But you never forget what happened."

In recent months, Vickie has got used to answering questions about Pilot Officer Mynarski, the boy she met when she was 15 at an ice rink in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in winter 1936.

CBC, Canada's national television channel, interviewed her for a documentary on his ill-fated mission to France, which was shown there on the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

Now, The Northern Echo has tracked her down, still living in Winnipeg, after launching our £40,000 appeal to have a statue built to honour the Second World War hero at Teesside International Airport, the former RAF base where Mynarski was stationed.

Vickie admits the current interest has stirred up painful memories. "Perhaps too painful," she admits.

But, 60 years after her loved one plummeted to his death, earning a posthumous Victoria Cross, she still has much to say about him.

The couple were madly in love and looking forward to getting married when Mynarski joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and went to war.

"We were officially engaged," says Vickie. "We would have liked to get married but he wanted his mother to receive some of his money while he was away. She was a widow and there was still two young children in the house."

The couple wrote to one another each day and spent precious time together when Mynarski was home on leave.

In December 1942, he left for overseas duty - and never returned.

His squadron was stationed at RAF Middleton St George, near Darlington, when his crew set out on their 13th mission on June 12, 1944.

After their Lancaster bomber was hit by enemy fire over France, Mynarski crawled through flames to try to save his trapped friend, Pat Brophy.

His efforts were in vain and he was eventually forced to bail out, his flight suit on fire from the waist down. He was found alive by French farmers but died a few hours later from extensive burns.

Brophy miraculously survived the crash when he was thrown clear of the plane.

Vickie received a telegram to say her fianc was missing but she did not discover he had died until after the war, when a surviving crew member, Jim Kelly, returned to Canada.

"Jim Kelly came to my house and told me 'Andrew is dead'," she says. "He died after he parachuted out of the plane."

Her fianc's unselfish act did not surprise her - but the pride she felt was mixed with overwhelming feelings of loss.

"It was hard for me to have an understanding of why he was the only one who didn't come back," she says.

"I felt proud of him and in my heart I figured that was what he would have wanted to do. But it's a different kind of pride. You are feeling sorry for yourself too.

"The old saying is 'better to be a live coward than a dead hero' but that's not the way it went."

Brophy told the story of his friend's incredible sacrifice to the Canadian authorities and Mynarski was hailed a hero, with receptions held in his honour.

"It was very hard and anything I attended I couldn't take," says Vickie. "I cried - I'm not strong like that."

Vickie eventually found love again, marrying Walter in 1948. They have two daughters, Marilyn, 52, Patricia, 49, and grandchildren, Trisha, 22, and Michael, 19.

She destroyed all of Mynarski's letters when she got married but still has constant reminders of her former love because so many landmarks and buildings in Manitoba are named after him.

Asked for her favourite memories of him, it's too hard for her to choose.

"All memories are good," she says. "He was loveable and kissable and that's it.

"He was a very kind and gentle person, very considerate and sympathetic and he cared about people."

As we say goodbye to one another, Vickie points out, with a trace of pride in her voice, that she is the only person left alive who remembers Andrew.

"I don't think you ever forget," she adds quietly. "I remember him in my prayers. He's not forgotten as far as I'm concerned even though I have a different life.

"You think 'why did he do it?' But I guess it's just a choice that a man has to make. He didn't think he was going to give his life. He figured he'd survive. It didn't work out that way."