A GERMAN Second World War bomber pilot yesterday visited a 1,000-year-old church he targeted by mistake and apologised to villagers.

Willie Schludecker, 84, shook hands with churchgoers who remembered his inadvertent attack on the Saxon St Andrew's Church in Bolam, near Morpeth, Northumberland, 62 years ago.

The pilot jettisoned his cargo of four 500kg bombs as he dodged British Beaufighter pilots sent to intercept his Dornier 217, which was on a run to bomb Sunderland.

One landed in the churchyard, another punched a hole in the church wall, but failed to detonate inside, while two more exploded in a field behind the church.

He viewed the damage caused and was particularly touched to see a stained-glass window that marked the spot where his bomb failed to detonate.

The widowed Roman Catholic father-of-one, from Zulpig, near Cologne, said: "I am speechless, this is wonderful to feel such friendship here.

"I was very interested to come here, I felt very bad when I found out I had hit a church. I was aiming for the railway line, but very pleased that it did not go off.

"I am sort of here to apologise.

"When I first came to Britain in 2000, I was introduced as a bomber pilot and I was afraid of people's reactions. But everyone was so friendly.

"They said it was just the war and that I was just doing my job."

Mr Schludecker was greeted at the church by the Whaley family, who were woken at 4am on May 1, 1942, as his bomber almost clipped the chimney of their home less than a mile from the church.

He revealed how one crewman had suggested their home as a target, but that he refused and picked out the nearby railway line, which they missed.

John, 83, Chris, 81, and their sister, Joy Scott, 86, thanked him and shook hands with the pilot as they chatted through an interpreter.

Joy said: "He was only a little lad when he did this, just 21 or 22, and he was doing his job. Willie is pleased that he killed no one and that is why he has come over."