By GEOFF CUMMING and STAN ARNAUD
He was one of hundreds of New Zealand airmen who never came back from the Second World War.
Killed in one of the most inhospitable places on earth, Arthur Round's body was never recovered from the glacier in Iceland which claimed his plane.
Now, nearly 60 years on, the remains of Flying Officer Round will be buried with full military honours in Iceland.
The pilot from Newlands, Wellington, perished along with three British airmen when his RAF Fairey Battle aircraft crashed in fog in mountainous terrain in May 1941.
Although a search party in 1941 found the wreckage of the plane, the bodies could not be retrieved and soon vanished beneath the snow and ice.
Flying Officer Round's broken-hearted parents, David and Mary, mourned for the rest of their days at not being able to bury their son.
The chance find last year of a map used by the original search party and global warming have combined to end the mystery - the glacier finally offering up its dead.
An RAF mountain rescue team will travel to Iceland next month to recover the bodies and bury them with military honours at the military cemetery in Reykjavik.
The find has delighted surviving friends and relatives who remember the dashing young pilot as one of the first to leave in 1939 to fight the Germans.
"I'm quite amazed to think they've found Arthur's remains after all this time," a nephew, Clive Round, said in Palmerston North yesterday.
Tracked down by the Herald after RAF inquiries failed to find a relative, Mr Round said his uncle was killed after volunteering for a mission.
"I remember him going away on the boat - I must have been six or seven at the time. He played the piano accordion ... Now Is the Hour.
"They said he was going to England to teach their fighter pilots how to fly."
Climbers found traces of the wreckage last August after the warmest summer for 30 years stripped away layers of ice.
An Icelandic historian, Horour Griersson, confirmed the find, aided by a map used in the original search.
"We were shocked to find wreckage, small and large human remains and personal possessions, all perfectly preserved.
"There were toothbrushes, a wallet with Icelandic money in it and we could even read the name of a man on the collar of an RAF shirt."
A team led by Squadron Leader Nick Barr will leave Scotland on August 18 to retrieve the bodies.
Squadron Leader Barr said: "Whether people died today, yesterday or 60 years ago, it is still our duty to try to find them and bring them to where they can be laid to rest."
War pilot's body found
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