Sister sees war hero brother laid to rest

IT WAS her mother’s dying wish. Peggy Kehoe, 88, fought for decades to find the remains of her war hero brother — killed when an RAF bomber ploughed into a Dutch potato field in 1941 — and have him brought home to Ireland for burial in consecrated ground, which is what their mother always wanted for her beloved son.

Yesterday, Mrs Kehoe arrived in Holland to see at least part of that wish granted. Her brother Sgt John (Jack) Kehoe was just 20 when his Hampden bomber was shot down by a German night fighter in 1941. He will be laid to rest at last, together with an English-born comrade Stanley Mullenger, whose remains also lay in the deeply buried wreckage, undisturbed for more than 66 years.

Instead of being interred in the Kehoe family grave in Tullamore, Co Offaly, Jack Kehoe will be buried with full military honours in one of Holland’s many military cemeteries tomorrow.