British Cemetery [1]

British Cemetery

by Paul Branch, 2006

The British Cemetery of Ocracoke. Photograph courtesy of North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film, and Sports Development. The British Cemetery on Ocracoke Island is a small cemetery containing the graves of four British navy personnel killed while helping defend the North Carolina coast against German U-boats [2] (submarines) in World War II [3]. In March 1942, the 900-ton HMS Bedfordshire [4] was one of 24 armed trawlers sent by Great Britain to help the U.S. Navy defend the Atlantic coast of the United States against U-boat attacks. On 11 May 1942, the Bedfordshire was torpedoed and sunk by U-558 southeast of Cape Lookout [5] with a loss of all 37 crew members. The bodies of two crew members, Lt. Thomas Cunningham and Ordinary Telegraphist Stanley Craig, washed ashore on Ocracoke, and the Coast Guard [6] buried them in a small cemetery plot donated by a local family. A week later, two additional Bedfordshire crew members, unidentified, washed up and were also buried in the plot.

Later fitted with permanent markers and enclosed by a white picket fence, the four graves have since become well known as the British Cemetery of Ocracoke. Currently, a bronze plaque engraved with words from Rupert Brooke [7] rests on the fence, serving as a fitting tribute to the four men who died in war far from home:

Reference:

L. VanLoan Naisawald, In Some Foreign Field: Four British Graves and Submarine Warfare on the North Carolina Outer Banks (rev. ed., 1997).

Additional Resources:

McCarten, Neala Schwartzberg. "British Cemetery at Ocracoke, North Carolina." OffbeatTravel.com. 2005. http://www.offbeattravel.com/british-cemetery-outerbanks.html [8] (accessed July 6, 2012).

"The sinking of HMS Bedfordshire." BBC.com. February 15, 2005. http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/content/articles/2005/02/15/hms_bedfordshire_feature.shtml [9] (accessed July 6, 2012).

"Battle of the Atlantic Exhibition: Exploring WWII in the Graveyard of the Atlantic: HMT Bedfordshire." National Marine Sanctuaries, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/missions/battleoftheatlantic2/bedfordshire.html [10] (accessed July 6, 2012).

Image Credit:

The British Cemetery of Ocracoke. Photograph courtesy of North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film, and Sports Development.

Subjects:

World War II (1941-1945) [11]

Places [12]

Ships [13]

UNC Press [14]

Authors:

Branch, Paul [15]

From:

Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. [16]

1 January 2006 | Branch, Paul