Ocracoke British Cemetery

The HMT Bedfordshire was sunk by German Kriegsmarine U-558 on May 11, 1942 while she was on anti-U-boat patrol in Torpedo Alley, off the coast of North Carolina. All 37 sailors on board were killed. In the following days, the bodies of four sailors washed ashore on Ocracoke Island and were buried by local residents in community cemetery plots. The four sailors were later reinterred in the current plot, and a memorial was erected to honor all sailors from the Bedfordshire.

A Royal Navy ensign flies permanently over the cemetery, and an annual memorial service is held on May 11 by the British Royal Navy, United States Coast Guard, Canadian Royal Navy, and United States National Park Service to honor the crew.^[1] In 1976, the site was leased in perpetuity to the British government.^[2]

Formal custody is administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which provided the official headstones. Regular maintenance is carried out by the United States Coast Guard and local residents as a gesture of gratitude and respect toward the fallen, and as an act of goodwill to the United Kingdom.