By Audrey Dewjee (9th November 2024)
It has been my habit for the last thirty years to visit Stonefall War Graves cemetery in Harrogate a few days before Remembrance Sunday, to put poppies on the graves of nine men.
This year I have decided to do something different by way of remembrance – hence this article.
Stonefall War Graves cemetery
Stonefall War Graves cemetery contains the graves of over 1,000 men and women who died in two World Wars. Two-thirds of the 988 graves from WW2 belong to men of the Royal Canadian Air Force, who left their homes thousands of miles away to fight Nazi Germany. Many other graves contain the remains of airmen from Australia. Every year wreaths from Canada and Australia are placed on the central Stone of Remembrance and sometimes flags of these countries are placed on individual graves.
There are graves of other servicemen and women in the cemetery, most of them native British, but there are also a few graves of servicemen from other European countries who died in Britain during the war, including Russians, a German and a Czech airman.
I used to put poppies on the graves of nine men who came from distant countries in the then British Empire. As they are simply recorded as ‘British’ and not by their countries of origin, I was afraid they would not be known about, or remembered by anyone else.
The Nine Men
The first of the nine to die was 136422 Flying Officer Ulric Leslie Look-Yan, son of Joseph and Maud A. Look-Yan, of Port of Spain, Trinidad, known to his family as ‘Lin’. He was killed in a flying accident on a training exercise, on 14th January 1944, aged 21, when the plane he was flying dived into the ground at Roseden, near Wooler in Northumberland. Lin’s mother was able to visit his grave in 1972. There is much more information about him on this link: http://www.milfield.org.uk/royal_air_force_milfield.htm#
714152 AC2 Patrick Constantine Marshall, son of Tenold Neel Marshall and Ethel Marshall of Spanish Town, Jamaica, died on 21st July 1944. He had arrived in Britain a month earlier as part of the first large contingent of RAF volunteers for ground crew duties who were doing their initial British training at RAF Hunmanby Moor, Filey, Yorkshire. Patrick died from meningococcal meningitis, aged 19.
714017 AC2 Byron Sylvester Martin, son of Mary Deleon and twin brother of Joyce, of Spa[nish?] Town, Jamaica, died 17 days later on 7th August, 1944. His cause of death was listed as meningococcal meningoencephalitis. Byron was another member of the first contingent of men who were training at RAF Hunmanby Moor, Filey. He too was aged 19.
144463 Flying Officer (Pilot) Edward Fred Hutchinson Haly, DFC, son of John and Edith Marie Haly, of British Guiana, aged 23, is commemorated on the memorial plaque in the shelter at the cemetery. A Pilot Instructor based at RAF Marston Moor, Tockwith, he too was killed in a flying accident, along with the rest of the plane’s crew, on 17th September 1944. The plane was on a daytime training flight, when it dived into the ground on approach to the airfield with its wheels down and burst into flames. The cause of the accident was structural failure of an elevator. Air accident investigators found a sheared elevator control joint at the scene. While in Britain, Edward had married Daphne Pauline Biles in London in 1942. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for service with 51 Squadron, in August 1943.
One month later, 1553660 Sergeant Pilot Iskeli Doviverata Komaisavai, son of Ratu Savenaca Komaisavai and Adi Miriama Komaisavai, of Tailevu, Fiji, died on 19th October 1944. A note in records at the National Archives states his death was caused by ‘serious illness – polyserositis.’ He was 24 years old. Descended from the former kings of Fiji, Komaisavai sailed from Fiji to train with the Air Force in Canada. He had arrived in Britain in June 1941 and served as a pilot with 234 Squadron.
When I arrived to plant my poppy in November 2023, I was shocked to discover the grave covered in wreaths and a photograph of Sgt. Pilot Komaisavai next to the headstone. A wreath-laying ceremony, attended by the High Commissioner of Fiji, had been organised a few days earlier by Sergeant Sakeasi Iliesa, a Fijian currently serving with the RAF. Sgt. Iliesa, who came across Komaisavai’s story whilst researching Fijians who had served in the British Forces, said he wanted to raise awareness of Sgt. Komaisavai’s service and how he was a pioneer for Fijians in the RAF.
723562 AC2 Wilfred Octavius Dawns, son of Zachariah and Ellen Dawns of George’s Plain, Jamaica, died of pneumonia on 17th January 1945, aged 24. He was a member of the second main contingent of ground crew volunteers who arrived to do their basic British training at RAF Hunmanby Moor, Filey in November 1944. He was taken ill at Filey during a bitter cold winter.
TML/75289 Private Shabani Selemani of the African Pioneer Corps [East Africa] died on 15th May 1945. No further details are known of his exact birthplace, his age or his family. I am not even certain whether Selemani is his first name or his surname. For many years I had wondered how he found his way to his final resting place in Harrogate, until military historian, John Ellis, and Elizabeth Smith, Public Engagement Coordinator (North East) of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, supplied further information. Shabani Selemani had been a Prisoner or War, probably captured at the fall of Tobruk in May 1942 and taken first to Italy and then to a camp in occupied France. It is likely he was liberated at the end of the war and brought to the UK to a military hospital, possibly in the military wing of Harrogate General Hospital. We don’t know whether he died from illness (most likely) or whether he had been wounded.
723376 AC2 Ivan Copeland Ashman is another person about whom there is little information in official records, other than he was from Jamaica. He died on 28th April 1945 of pulmonary tuberculosis, aged 19. He was another member of the second main contingent of ground crew volunteers who arrived to do their basic British training at RAF Hunmanby Moor, Filey in November 1944
724737 Leading Aircraftman Isaac Roland Bryan, son of George and Olga Bryan of Fair Prospect, Long Bay, Jamaica, died while still in service with the RAF, two years after the war ended, on 7th May 1947. At the time of his death he was a clerk at 1 Personnel Holding Unit, Innsworth, Gloucestershire, probably awaiting repatriation to Jamaica. He came to Britain in March 1945 in the third main contingent of ground crew recruits who did their initial British training at RAF Melksham in Wiltshire. Isaac died of pleurisy secondary to pulmonary tuberculosis, aged 21.
We know that eight of these men were young – aged between 19 and 24, and there is no reason to suppose that Shabani Selemani was much older. None of them died in combat, although Shabani Selemani may have been wounded in action, which could have contributed to his death. This should remind us that many who lost their lives during the war, died from accidents of all kinds, sickness, ill-treatment by captors and illness caused by adverse weather and conditions of deprivation, as well as during combat. No doubt, all of these men left their homes with high hopes that they would help create a better world and better lives for themselves after the war. Instead they lie buried in a cemetery in Yorkshire, far away from their homes and loved ones. Remembering them with gratitude for their sacrifice is the least that we can do.
