Air crash research links Shropshire family across the Atlantic
A writer and historian's research into a wartime air crash has linked a Shropshire family with relatives thousands of miles away in America.
John Griffiths-Colby has been looking into the crash landing in Kent of an American B-24 Liberator bomber in which one of the survivors was 21-year-old Sergeant Fred Ozbirn from Oakdale, California.
He discovered that Fred had a cousin, Bud Ozbirn, an American soldier who was based in Britain during the war. And as he dug deeper he came across a Star story from last September telling how Katie Ozbirn, a nurse from Newport, was travelling to London with her mother to pay their respects at the state funeral of the Queen.
It turns out that Katie's husband Dean is Bud's grandson.
"Bud’s family remain in touch with their UK cousins but the California Ozbirns were unaware of a UK branch of the family," said John, who has told Dean and Katie of his findings, paving the way for two branches of the family on different sides of the Atlantic to connect up.
Dean said: "My auntie has got back to me and she says that Bud didn't ever mention a Fred Ozbirn, let alone know he was in England at the same time.
