Second World War Commonwealth War Grave - Leading Aircraftman Edmund John Michael McGrath, 13 Elementary Flight Training School - Flying Accident

Gravestone of Leading Aircraftman Edmund John McGrath, Under Training Pilot, Royal Air Force. All Saints' Cemetery, Maidenhead, Berkshire.

 

 

Edmund John Michael McGrath was born in 1911 in Aldershot, Surrey, to Edmund Louis McGrath,  a clerk at the Aldershot Gas, Water, and District Lighting Company, and his wife Rosalind White. On 10 April 1913 Edmund's father passed away. 

Edmund first appears in the 1921 Census, aged 9, living with his widowed mother Rosalind, who was working as a teacher, at 20 Sister's Avenue, Wandsworth, London. Edmund's mother Rosalind was to pass away in the first quarter of 1939.

On 21st December 1940 Leading Aircraftman Edmund John McGrath was due to pilot a de Havilland Tiger Moth aeroplane BB754 from R.A.F Crazies Hill, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire to  R.A.F White Waltham, Berkshire. The Tiger Moth stalled on take off and crashed at the Henley-on-Thames airfield, killing Edmund on impact. Edmund was just 29 years old at the time of his death.