In article ,
"Kevin Dunlevy" wrote:

The Shepherd is a 1976 novel by Frederick Forsyth, but is actually a
well-known Royal Air Force story from considerably earlier.

(snip)

When he lands at the base, however, he learns that his saviour was Johnny
Kavanagh, an RAF pilot who guided the pilots of crippled bombers home, who
disappeared over the North Sea in his Mosquito on his last mission, on
Christmas Eve fourteen years before.


For a gloriously maudlin "trucker-Christmas Eve hitchhiker" country
music variation on the same theme, see "Phantom 509" (I think that's the
title).

"Ain't no trucker a-running any line,
ever seen anything but tail lights from Phantom 509."