Cork island unveils memorial to US airman

An island community has honoured a young US First World War airman who died in a plane crash off the south coast while returning from a dangerous anti submarine patrol.

Residents of Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay, Co Cork, also remembered the teen aviator who survived the crash and arranged for his descendants to lay a wreath at the crash site.

Californian Kym Kemp, whose grandfather, radio operator Neil Kemp, was just 18 when he was injured in the disaster, said it was a very special moment for her family. Accompanied at the poignant ceremonies on Saturday by her husband, Kevin Church, their son, Malachi, 12, and her mother-in-law, Donna Robinson, Ms Kemp said: “We had been trying to find out for some time what happened that day.