A World War Two history talk and book launch are being hosted at Lough Erne Yacht Club this weekend.

All who are interested are invited to this Saturday's event, which will feature friendships built over a quarter century by LEYC and Fermanagh historians with the families of the airmen and women involved with Catalina and Sunderland flying boats from Lough Erne in the the Second World War's longest campaign, the Battle of the Atlantic.

A representative for the upcoming event recalled that Jennifer Jones visited LEYC in June 2009. In a simple ceremony hosted by then Commodore Mary Ann Sutton, she laid a wreath at the memorial stone to her grandfather Ted Muffitt, pilot of a Catalina lost over the Atlantic in November 1943. "He has no grave, just his name and those of the other crew on Joe O'Loughlin's Roll of Honour in LEYC Clubhouse," said the spokesman.

This whole story and many others are in Joe O'Loughlin's latest book, entitled "Catalinas and Sunderlands on Lough Erne, Ireland in World War Two." The spokesman points out that "today's yacht club on the former RAF Killadeas site puts the artefacts of war to peacetime use. Where air crew once trained in the technology of war against the U-boats, today's peaceful contests involve the technology of racing under sail." Joe O'Loughlin's latest book is less about technology and more about the men and women involved in that war they fought from Lough Erne, and their children and grandchildren, who more often in recent years are the visitors to Lough Erne.

A grand-nephew of another name on that Roll plans to visit LEYC this September - George Lowther, Royal Australian Air Force, buried in Irvinestown on December 31, 1942.

Everybody interested is very welcome to Saturday's gathering, which starts at 8pm. For more information, LEYC Historian, Michael Clarke can be contacted on telephone number 6862-1436. Web www.leyc.net .