Text and photo by Connie Leinbach
Ocracoke was an unwilling witness to the horror of naval warfare in the North Atlantic as German U-boats attacked American and Allied merchant ships, said island historian Philip Howard during the 83rd British Cemetery Ceremony.
“Explosions offshore rattled windows and burning fuel lit up the night sky as plumes of black smoke lifted heavenward,” he said. “Wreckage and bodies washed up on our beaches.
“The Ocracoke community continues to remember and honor those who gave their lives to combat the tyranny of fascism and to protect our shores, our freedoms and our democratic values.”
Howard was among representatives from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany who spoke at the ceremony May 9 at the graveyard site along British Cemetery Road.
Commander Luisa Winkler, German Assistant Naval Attache stationed in Washington, D.C., was the second German officer to attend the ceremony to remember the torpedoing of the British armed trawler H.M.T. Bedfordshire off the Outer Banks on May 11, 1942, depositing four British sailors on the beach.
Islanders rallied and a family donated the land for the burials.
Sub-Lt. Thomas Cunningham and Ordinary Telegraphist Second Class Stanley Craig were the only ones identified of the four sailors interred in this small patch of England.
The Bedfordshire was one of many trawlers pressed into service and dubbed the Royal Navy Patrol Service, which kept the trans-Atlantic shipping lanes open for the British Navy.
Winkler praised the alliance between Germany and the United States since then.
“We must not stop telling these stories,” Winkler said.
She recounted the fate of the German submarine U-558 that sank the Bedfordshire, noting that it was attacked in July 1943 by American aircraft in the Bay of Biscay. After his crew abandoned the ship and was lost, the captain and four crewmen were captured by a Canadian destroyer and became prisoners of war, she said.
“I tell you this because I do care,” Winkler said. “Never again is now, but our partnership and alliance shall persist forevermore.”
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 gravesites and honor these British sailors each year since 1942.
