News / Lottery cash for Cunningsburgh memorial
CUNNINGSBURGH History Group has been awarded £9,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to erect a memorial commemorating the loss of a de Haviland aircraft at Royl Field on the night of 22 November 1944.
Two people, pilot John Alexander Reid and navigator Wesley Douglas Irwin, died when the Mosquito DZ642 crashed in poor visibility.
The aircraft was short of fuel when it was returning to Sumburgh from a mission to the German U-boat pen at Trondheim, Norway.
There is a way-marked walk from Sandwick to the crash site where some remains of the aircraft can still be seen.
With the the help of the lottery’s Sharing Heritage fund, the history group is now planning to unveil a commemorative memorial at the Cunningsburgh History Hut in summer of 2018.
Alan Gear of the history group said they would be working with the local community and schools to research facts around the event.
They will also establish a link with the de Havilland Aircraft Museum to find out more about the aircraft and missions.
“The Cunningsburgh History Group are very excited to have received this HLF grant,” Gear said.
“We feel this commemoration of the WW2 Mosquito crash is something that the people in our village welcome and it helps record the history of Cunningsburgh.”
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