CADETS REMEMBRANCE – OMAGH RAF AIR CADETS

Cadet Ethan Sharkey, aged 13, from the UK’s most westerly RAF Air Cadet Sqn lays a wreath at the site where a Catalina from RAF Killadeas crashed on 30th December 1943 killing 11 RAF, RCAF and RAAF personnel.

Ethan has only been a Cadet for 2 months but was keen to volunteer for this opportunity to tidy this RAF memorial and lay a tribute to those young men who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. 

Along with other Cadets from Omagh, Ethan gave up his Saturday to visit RAF war graves and crash site memorials in order to clean them and lay poppy wreaths. 

He commented “I am proud of being an Air Cadet and part of the RAF family. Today allows me to pay my respects to the War dead and to do something for my local community”

Officer Commanding Omagh Sqn, Flying Officer Graham Dodds expressed his thanks to Ethan and the other Cadets involved in this act of remembrance and highlighted the event as an example of the quality of young people in local communities, stating “Ethan and his Sqn colleagues have displayed a real sense of dedication and character in taking on this task. Despite poor weather, they visited a number of RAF war graves and crash sites in order to tidy them and lay fresh tributes in advance of Remembrance Sunday. Young people are often tagged as self interested and unfocused but acts such as this prove this wrong for my cadets”

Cpl Luke Beattie of Omagh RAF Air Cadets pauses to reflect on the sacrifice of the 11 Commonwealth Airmen commemorated at the site of a Catalina crash in 1943 at Dunmullan, Tyrone