Special dedication ceremony for new memorial to fallen airman

A memorial to a fallen airman has been unveiled in a Rotherham community after a long campaign.

Flying Officer Andrew Crowther of the RAF, who was killed in 1981 when taking part in a training exercise, was honoured on a new memorial following a dedication service.

The memorial is in The Square in Wales, Rotherham, and is also dedicated to members of the Armed Forces who died in peacetime.

The service and placing of the memorial is the culmination of three years of effort by David Stapleton to remember the brother of his late friend, Martin Crowther.

He had asked the War Graves Commission whether Andrew’s name could be on the cenotaph but they said he could only be included if he had died in a declared conflict.

Wales Parish Council supported the memorial proposal.

There is space on the memorial to add other names in future.

Richard Waller, former clerk to Wales Parish Council, said that Andrew’s brother, Ian Crowther, spoke on behalf of the family.

Reverend Julie Coates of Wales Kiveton Methodist Church conducted the dedication service.

Andrew Crowther died on November 18, 1981, when his SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1 supersonic jet attack aircraft flew into a hillside during a snow storm near Dingwall in Scotland. He had been based at RAF Lossiemouth.