The Royal Navy • A piece of UK territory in North Carolina

During World War II, German submarines lurked right off Ocracoke Island’s shores. In 1942, the British Royal Navy sent 24 armed trawlers to assist the U.S. Navy in defending our coastline.

On May 11 of that year, German U-558 torpedoed one of those trawlers, the HMT Bedfordshire, killing all 37 members of the British and Canadian Royal Navies aboard. Only four bodies were ever recovered as they washed ashore on Ocracoke Island. Though far from home, they were given a proper burial in a small plot of land donated by Ocracokers, which flies the national flag of the United Kingdom and is recognized as being “forever England.”

Each May, a ceremony and reception is held here commemorating the sinking of the HMT Bedfordshire and honoring the four sailors interred here. Representatives from the US Coast Guard, US Navy, British Royal Navy, and Canadian Royal Navy participate in the ceremony, which includes a reading of the crew list, the playing of bagpipes, and a 21-gun salute.

In 1942, the United States had a very big U-boat problem. German submarines were prowling just off of the east coast, torpedoing American ships as they tried to make their way out to sea. For that reason, the British government agreed to lend two dozen antisubmarine corvettes to the Navy. One of them was the H.M.S. Bedfordshire, a former fishing trawler outfitted with guns.

That ship and the others made their way across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, then traveled down the coast. The Bedfordshire itself was based in Morehead City, and patrolled the coast from there up to Norfolk during April and May 1942, going back to its adopted home port from time to time to load up on coal.

At one point, in an unintended moment of foreshadowing, an American officer, Aycock Brown, came aboard to commandeer some British flags for the burial of sailors whose boat had been torpedoed off of Cape Hatteras. Sub Lieutenant Thomas Cunningham rounded up six.

Not long after that, the Bedfordshire went back out on patrol. On the night of May 12, 1942, the German U558 was cruising around between Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout, and its microphones picked up on the sound of the Bedfordshire’s engines. The boat, which hadn’t had much success in hunting Allied warships up to that point, surfaced and opened fire. The Bedfordshire sank quickly, and all of its 37 soldiers died. Not long after, two soldiers’ bodies washed up on Ocracoke. One of them was Cunningham’s. 

According to a 1988 News & Observer story:

There were no undertakers, ministers or public cemeteries on Ocracoke then, so a local family—the Williamses—donated a portion of their family plot for the two dead men. Two coffins were built from floating duck blinds, and the two men were laid to rest with a lay member of the Methodist church presiding. Coast Guardsmen provided military honors, and Aycock Brown provided the British flag, the very same flag that Cunningham had given him to honor some other British sailor's grave.

Soon after two other bodies washed up, and were also buried in the same plot. A fifth Bedforshire sailor was buried near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

For years, the villagers in Ocracoke took care of the tiny plot. In the 1970s, the British Royal Navy spruced it up. In 1976, the land was leased in perpetuity to the British government, but the U.S. Coast Guard maintains it now.

Shortly after death of the queen, the people on Ocracoke made a small but meaningful gesture. Someone lowered the British flag to half-staff.

Eventually the grounds were leased in perpetuity to the British Commonwealth for as long as the sailors are buried there, so technically the four men are buried on home soil.

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