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Seafield Road South, GREAT YARMOUTH, NR30 5LF

There are three large plots of Military graves in Caister cemetery, primarily from the Royal Naval Hospital in Great Yarmouth. This plot is mainly Naval Personnel but other branches of the services are represented from WW2 and post war casualties.

The cross represents the 745 service personnel buried in the old and new Caister cemeteries. Caister War Memorial is in St Edmund's church. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5117956 WW1 https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5117966 WW2

Hostile raid 497 was a daylight low-level attack by 18 FW 190s of II/SKG.10 on the Gt Yarmouth area at 0845 hours on 11 May 1943. This was a frontal attack out of the sun and early morning mist. The raiders followed a reverse course of that taken by an earlier raid on 7 May, crossing in flying W just N of Britannia Pier and attacking the N part of Gt Yarmouth, exiting over the Winterton area. Gorleston ROC post made a sound only report identifying the incoming FW's about a minute before the attack. Caister ROC post gave the alarm to Gt Yarmouth Police and the air raid alarm was sounded only a few seconds after the first bombs fell. 14 x 500 kg HE bombs fell in various scattered residential areas in the N of the town. Some of the bombs bounced over the ground due to the low-level of their release. There was widespread destruction from bombs and cannon-fire, and with 49 people killed and 41 injured, this was the worst air-raid Gt Yarmouth endured in WW 2. A squad of about 30 ATS girls had been exercising that morning and had just marched back to their billet at Whitfield House, a large hostel at No.8, North Drive, when it received a direct hit from an HE bomb. There were 28 fatalities in just this incident. Four Mustangs from 613 Sqn which had just taken from Coltishall on an armed recce over the Dutch coast were vectored onto the fleeing FW 190s and pursued them out to sea at low-level, F/O Townsend managed to shoot one down, confirmed in German records. The other girls killed in the raid were returned to their respective home parish. Thanks to BC for the details imparted above.

Martha Taylor has been written into history for all the wrong reasons. She was killed on 19th January 1915 by one of the first bombs dropped from a Zeppelin during the first ever air raid on England. She was 72. A second victim Samuel Alfred Smith lies in Great Yarmouth cemetery

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission regularly maintain and tend the graves at their many War Graves sites all over the world. Here they have just finished cutting the grass and are about to water the plants surrounding the grave markers. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission owes its existence to the vision and determination of one man - Sir Fabian Ware. The Commission's work began in earnest after the Armistice. Once land for cemeteries and memorials had been guaranteed, the enormous task of recording the details of the dead began. By 1918, some 587,000 graves had been identified and a further 559,000 casualties were registered as having no known grave. Today we take their work very much for granted but without the C.W.G.C. there would be no memorial gardens and the graves of those who died for our freedom would be lost forever. https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us

Heading south east.

Memorial to nine lifeboatmen who lost their lives when their boat capsized in a storm on 14. November 1901. The memorial is located across the road from > Image, the tower of which can be seen in the background, in the northwestern corner of the old cemetery on Ormesby Road. Update June 2020: The memorial has recently received a Grade 2 listing. Also known as the Beauchamp memorial, it is hailed by Historic England for its sculptural quality featuring a broken mast, anchor, laurel wreathes, and lifebuoy. Experts said that it was a “visual reminder of the tragic loss of life at sea,” and described it as “an eloquent and moving tribute to the bravery of the crew who perished in 1901, and a poignant reminder of the sacrifice of the local community.” The marble memorial was unveiled in 1903 and remembers the crew of the Beauchamp who perished while trying to save a fishing smack in distress.

The Caister Lifeboat Disaster of 13 November 1901 occurred off the coast of Caister-on-Sea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901_Caister_Lifeboat_Disaster