A World War Two grave in Lower Lough Erne, the scene of a crash landing on 18th November, 1943 of a 201 Squadron Sunderland Flying-Boat is set to be explored by a diving team later this year.

A lasting poignancy is the fact that two of the bodies of the four crewmen who perished are still down there with the wreck.

They were Flight Officer J. Dolphin and Sergeant J. B. Green. Their two colleagues were Sergeant J. B. Cummings and Sergeant Parry.

Their bodies are buried in Irvinestown graveyard.

Local crash site enthusiast, John McFarlane said he expected the dive to take place in September: "This is a very interesting development, and I look forward to learning about the results of the survey".

He explained that the team of divers would be coming from England to research and locate a number of crashed and scuttled aircraft in Lough Erne.

To date, these organised dives have struck gold. Two years ago, divers from Portstewart Sub Aqua Club, led by a WW2 aviation enthusiast, Peter Graham, located sunken Catalinas.

These flying boats were based at Castle Archdale during the war and rendered easy access to the 'Donegal Corridor' approach to the Atlantic Ocean in their effort to protect Allied Forces' shipping covoys from German U-boats.

That search was assisted by RAF veteran, Bill Waters from Irvinestown. He was a Flight Lieutenant who helped to sink six redundant aircraft at the end of the war, under US airforce orders.

And, it was during the plunge into the unknown, with poor visibility and at depths of 65 metres, that the team found an old training bomb.