Their names liveth ever more … Bradley Priddey and Philip Brock carefully refurbish gravestones to give the fallen the prominence they deserve.
The communications apprentice and engineering cadet were among eight volunteers from RFA Mounts Bay who offered their services at the Barbados Military Cemetery.
Caretaker of the cemetery asked personnel to re-instate the names, which had weathered with age, as well as clean the graves and the main memorial.
“To assist with the upkeep of such a historic site has been a great privilege and certainly one of the most rewarding and humbling experience that I have had within the RFA so far,” said Communications Apprentice John Millen.
The team were visited during the work by His Excellency Craig Fulton, Deputy High Commissioner for Barbados and Eastern Caribbean, and Gilly Metzgen, Political Officer, British High Commission, who were both impressed by what had been done.
The main memorial lists a number of Royal Navy ships and establishments:
HMS Cadmus 1962, HMS Rover 1870, HMS Bacchante 1880, HMS Volace 1888, HMS Canada 1892, HMS Pallas 1897, HMS Tribune 1899, HMS Frobisher 1937, HMS Druid 1878, HMS Tourmaline 1879, HMS Northampton 1882, HMS Comus 1889, HMS Magicienne 1893, HMS Intrepid 1898, HMS Indefatigable 1906, HMS Benbow 1944 and names of those who perished from the Royal Marine Light Infantry.
The cemetery, at Gravesend on Carlisle Bay, was first used in 1780, when the area was marshland.
In the early 20th Century, a number of the remaining graves were dug up to provide room for oil storage tanks; salvaged headstones were placed on a cenotaph, erected in 1920–24.
A ‘Cross of Sacrifice’ was erected in 1982 to honour all the military dead; a second cenotaph, erected in 2003, honours the Barbadian merchant seamen who died in WW2.
