OTTAWA—More than 70 years after they disappeared into the waters of Lake Muskoka, the pilots of Nomad 3521 have been recovered.

And on Tuesday, Peter Campbell, 24, of Britain and Canadian Ted Bates, 27, will be buried in a cemetery in Guelph, Ont.

“This recovery will provide closure to the families . . . These airmen can now be laid to rest with the military honours that they so rightfully deserve,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said in a statement.

The two men went missing just 12 days before Christmas in 1940 when their Northrop Nomad aircraft collided with another while on a search-and-rescue mission.

The other plane was found within weeks and the bodies of its pilots recovered.

But decades — and countless hours of searching, motivated by the urgings of area residents — would pass before the bodies of Bates, of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Campbell, of the Royal Air Force, could finally be retrieved.

On Friday, the defence department announced that their bodies had been recovered.

“This particular dive operation will certainly stay with the team forever,” navy Lieut. Greg Oickle, acting commanding officer of the Fleet Diving Unit (Atlantic) which led the recovery, said in a statement.

In addition to the two bodies, navy divers recovered personal effects and the aircraft’s three .30 calibre machine-guns. The air force says it is “committed” to the recovery of the Nomad aircraft itself and says planning for that operation is underway.

The plane had actually been found in 2010 by divers with the Ontario Provincial Police. It was found broken into several pieces including the engine block, the fuselage, tail and wing sections. Recovery of the bodies occurred last October. The military says the news of the operation was kept secret to protect the crash site.

The two aircraft had been searching for Leading Aircraftsman Clayton Peder Hoptonan, who had gone missing the previous day on a training flight from CFB Borden. His body was found near his crashed aircraft south of the base the same day the two search planes collided in Muskoka.