FORMER airman Bill Brown has thanked the RAF after it conducted a mercy mission to take his dying wife Margaret home to be with her family.

Mrs Brown, 62, of Marshfield Road, Chippenham, became seriously ill with a brain tumour while living with her husband at joint headquarters in Rheindahlen, Germany.

Doctors told Mr Brown his wife, who was diagnosed with the tumour in August 2002, had a 50 per cent chance of surviving the RAF airlift from Germany back to Britain.

But she survived the flight home on May 16 and died four days later surrounded by her family at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.

Mrs Brown had also fought against breast cancer in 1985 and 1987. When she had her first attack of cancer, her husband was at a posting in the Falkland Islands, but she did not tell him of her illness and swore friends and family to secrecy.

For the last two weeks of her life she was in and out of consciousness, but Mr Brown, 57, who served in RAF communications for 22 years and now works for the civil service, said he firmly believes his wife knew she was back home.

"We had talked about returning home before, from August until last March, but we couldn't find a break in her medical treatment," he said. "We planned to come home in June, but things deteriorated.

"She was at the University Hospital in Dusseldorf, in Germany, but it got to the stage when the doctors told us there was nothing more they could do for her. She was asleep for most of the past two weeks, but I know with certainty she wanted to go home.

"I believe she knew she was home."

Mr Brown paid tribute to the organisation, speed, care and sensitivity displayed by the RAF in the mercy mission. He had previously spoken to the chief medical officer at the Army's joint headquarters, in Rheindahlen, about the possibility of taking his wife home and on May 11 Mr Brown told him the time had come.

A three-man medical team from the Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, based in RAF Lyneham, flew to Germany to provide Mrs Brown's in-flight care. Meanwhile a VC10, from 10 Squadron at Brize Norton, which was carrying 30 wounded British soldiers home from the Gulf, was diverted to collect Mrs Brown.

Warrant officer Graham Banks, of the RAF's Tactical Medical Wing, said: "We will fly anywhere in the world and collect our patients."

The medical team took her to the airport in an ambulance and made her comfortable inside the aircraft.

They pinned sheets up to provide Mrs Brown, her husband and elder daughter Amanda, 32, with some privacy for the flight.

The plane landed in Bristol where Mrs Brown was taken to Frenchay Hospital. Mr Brown said the care she received was so good her life signs were slightly better than before she took off.

"For the last 15 days of her life she was unconscious, but she could hear us," Mr Brown said. "On the day she was leaving, the doctor told her she was going home and her eyes opened for the first time in five days."

The couple, who first came to Chippenham in 1977, had planned to retire there this September.

Mrs Brown leaves behind two daughters, Amanda, 32, and Paula, 29, who lives in Chippenham with Mrs Brown's grand-daughter Lorna, 12.

Mrs Brown's funeral service was held in Chippenham's United Reformed Church last Friday. Donations may be sent to Macmillan Cancer Relief C/O FW Jones and Son, at 30 Market Place, in Chippenham.