An Ayrshire pensioner will make a poignant visit back to an RAF base where his extraordinary story of wartime heroics began.

In 1943, Flying Officer Alex Anderson, from Prestwick, took off from Leuchars in Fife bound for enemy occupied Norway. The flights was the start of what became a remarkable tale of courage and friendship. Sixty seven years later he has returned to the base.

Alex, 89, had only been at Leuchars for four days when he was told to ready himself to fly to enemy occupied Norway.

He said: "I was taking an oblique photograph and I saw this plane coming towards me, I swung away from it but I didn't see the second one coming towards me and I ran into his fire."

Alex had no choice but to bail out of the aircraft over Southern Norway and his plane plunged into a lake. Injured and struggling with freezing conditions, Alex walked for four days until he was found by a Norwegian man, Harald Johnsen who risked his own life to help him.

He added: "He gave me my only nights sleep for four nights, he fed me and in the morning, he woke me up and walked me across a frozen fjord and put me on the road to Sweden."

Prisoner of war

Alex was eventually captured by the Germans and taken to a prisoner of war of camp, Stalag Luft III where he helped with one of the most famous escape plots, the wooden horse.

He was released in 1945 and went on to become a teacher in Ayrshire.

In 1963, divers found his spitfire and later that year he was reuinited with Harald, the man who had helped him all those years ago.

Next weekend he will return to RAF Leuchars for the first time since those fateful days, joining other veterans from around the UK.

He said: "Oh I am very pleased to be going back, no doubt it will be far pleasanter circumstances than when i was there before.