PORTSMOUTH, Va.--U.S. Coast Guard Sector North Carolina personnel and residents of the Outer Banks commemorated the local deaths of Allied seamen during World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic on Thursday and Friday at Buxton and Ocracoke, North Carolina.
The ceremonies occurred at cemeteries in Buxton and Ocracoke that hold the remains of six British sailors whose ships were torpedoed by German submarines nearby in 1942.
Coast Guard officers laid wreaths at the graves, and local high school students read the names of the dead prior to the playing of taps and a 21-gun salute.
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Wreaths and the flags of Canada, Great Britain and the United States honor each nation’s casualties of World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic at the British Cemetery in Buxton, N.C., on Thursday. U.S. Coast Guard and Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum personnel maintain the cemetery. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Chiara Sinclair)
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British navy attaché Cmdr. Mark Lister (left) speaks at a memorial service at the British Cemetery in Ocracoke, N.C., on Friday. U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Javier Delgado (right), other Coast Guard personnel, the Royal Canadian Navy, the British Royal Navy and the U.S. National Park Service joined visitors and local residents to commemorate the loss of British and Canadian sailors from the HMS Bedfordshire and the British merchant vessel San Delfino. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Corrie Smith)
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High school student Enrique Babilonia plays taps at the 74th annual memorial ceremony in Buxton, N.C., Thursday. Babilonia is one of six students from the Cape Hatteras Secondary School of Coastal Studies to participate in the ceremony. “The next generation starts carrying the flag forward,” said Danny Couch, a speaker at the event and native islander whose daughter was also a student volunteer at the ceremony. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Chiara Sinclair)