Story by Arabella Saunders
Photos courtesy of Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum
On May 11, 1942, a German submarine fired a torpedo at the H.M.T. Bedfordshire, sinking it almost immediately. All 37 Royal Navy sailors aboard were killed.
The British ship was patrolling off the coast of Ocracoke Island, the site of a fishing village that a small population of locals called home.
After the sinking, two Royal Navy Sailors’ bodies were spotted in the surf off Ocracoke. Locals carried them back to the village and buried them in a small plot of land next to a family cemetery. Days later, two more bodies were found and buried in the same place.
The cemetery has been located – and cared for – on that same site for the past 80 years.
Tucked into a grove of cedar trees on the southwest side of the island, flanked by a campground and a family cemetery, lies a four-plot gravesite marked with a red-and-white sign. “British Cemetery” the sign reads in Old English font, with the words “cared for by the people of Ocracoke” running along the bottom.
Since 1942, the Ocracoke community, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and the Friends of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum have worked together to care for the four gravesites and to honor the sailors with an annual ceremony.
“I think it’s always been a fabric of the Ocracoke community,” said Melanie Schwarzer, administrator for the Friends of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. “The community volunteers get very excited about this every year and do a wonderful job of maintaining the gravesites.”
World War II on North Carolina’s coast
During the first six months of 1942, more than 400 unescorted commercial shipping vessels were sunk by German U-boats off the United States coast.
”These Allied tankers and freighters were carrying enough supplies to feed the isle of Great Britain for a month,” said Joseph Schwarzer, director of the North Carolina Maritime Museum System. “Fuel, food, ammunition, medicine, everything.”
The H.M.T. Bedfordshire was a 162-foot-long ship built in 1935 as a commercial fishing trawler and turned over to the British Royal Navy in 1939 for anti-submarine duty. In March 1942, the Royal Navy loaned 24 ships, including H.M.T. Bedfordshire, to the United States Navy to aid with anti-submarine patrols. Two months prior, 35 Allied ships were sunk by U-boats off the United States coast in Germany’s “Operation Drumbeat.”
“Oftentimes, the U-boats found ships traveling by themselves and they were sitting ducks,” Joseph Schwarzer said. “We didn’t have any coastal defense established. The tide turned almost immediately when Britain stepped in.”
But there were still losses, such as the men aboard the Bedfordshire.
“They were all very young,” cemetery caretaker Sundae Horn said. “(At the ceremony), we have the salutatorian (from Ocracoke School) read the names of all the people who were abroad the Bedfordshire. Most of them it’s 21, 24, 18, 18, 19, 20. I think that’s very sobering when you listen to it.”
The two men who were found in the surf and buried were Sub-Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham, 27, and Ordinary Telegraphist Second Class Stanley Craig, 23. The two other men buried were never identified.
“One of the women here (on Ocracoke) struck up a correspondence with the pregnant widow of Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham,” Horn said. “They had a long-standing correspondence that went back and forth and the Cunninghams’ son has been here to visit Ocracoke and the cemetery several times.”
In 1976, the North Carolina State Property Office perpetually leased the site to the British government. The cemetery then became part of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which records and maintains graves of servicemembers who perished during the two World Wars. It’s “probably the smallest Commission cemetery in the world,” according to the organization’s website.
Today, the British Cemetery site continues to resonate with island residents for its historical significance, and it has also become an important stop for visitors to pay their respects.
“It’s one of the things that’s made Ocracoke feel unique and special,” Horn said. “It’s always been important for the people of Ocracoke to honor these brave men.”
The 80th anniversary
On May 13, Ocracoke will host its annual British Cemetery Ceremony to honor the 80th anniversary of the sinking of the H.M.T. Bedfordshire.
This year’s ceremony is the first since 2019 after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. at the cemetery. Representatives from the British Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy will be in attendance, as well as members of the United States Coast Guard, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and seniors from Ocracoke School. A reception will be held afterward on the grounds of the Ocracoke Preservation Society Museum.
“I don’t think we should ever forget that young men lost their hopes, their dreams, their futures protecting us,” Joseph Schwarzer said. “And that we at least owe them some sort of homage to have not forgotten you. We still know what you did for us, and we still appreciate it.”
Stamped on a small brass plaque located a few feet from the graves are the first lines of Rupert Brooke’s “The Solider” – “If I should die, think only this of me/ That there’s some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England.”
