First World War Second World
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WARTIME In Northwood Cemetery there are 17 Commonwealth War Graves Commission military graves, three family memorials and five inscriptions from the First World War and there are 13 Second World War Graves and two family memorials. There is also a Civilian Mass Grave which records the loss of life during the bombing of Cowes on 4th/5th May 1942. FIRST WORLD WAR FREDERick TURNER Frederick was a driver with the Royal Field Artillery sent to Belgium in the first week of October 1914 as part of the British Expeditionary Force (Old Contemptibles). He Frederick Turner was 40 years old when he died from his wounds on 24th October 1914 in Northwood House, which was being used as a Red Cross Hospital during the First World War. He wrote a thank you poem to the staff. My thanks I can’t express in words, I hope that when these lines you read, The Sisters and the Nurses all, Tho’ but gunner I may be Please kindly take for granted, My duty ne’er I shun Have striven very hard And I am far away, If I possessed a thousand tongues Please one and all take thanks from me- To make my stay a pleasant one, They pleasant mem’ries will recall All day it should be chanted. Poor return for what you’ve done. And thankful is this Bard. Of my brief Northwood stay. WILLIAM JAMES Finch He was a member of ‘B’ Company of the Isle of Wight Rifles. Killed at Gallipoli on 12th August 1915, aged 21. William Finch memorial. IOW Rifles at Gallipoli. (Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum) THE LashmaR BROTHERS Ralph and Allan Lashmar were pioneering test pilots and flew newly designed planes during the First World War. Sadly they both lost their lives when testing the new Landplane Bomber No. 9841 for J.S.White. Their plane crashed in Ruffin’s Landplane Bomber No. 9842. (Beken of Cowes) Copse, Northwood on 7th September 1916. Allan Lashmar. SECOND WORLD WAR PETER JOHN EDwaRD MADDOX Peter was a Flight Sergeant Wireless Operator/Air Gunner serving with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 115 Squadron, flying Lancaster bombers. He was just 22, when he died on April 19th 1944. CIVILIAN MASS GRAVE The German air raid on the 4th/5th May 1942 led to the death of 80 people in Cowes, East Cowes and Newport and 80 serious injuries. The Cowes Urban District Council felt that the victims should be buried in a communal grave if the relatives were Peter Maddox. happy with this. One was dug at the top of the cemetery and later the present Memorial was added. Twenty-seven people are buried here and their names are recorded. The force of a bomb blast in the cemetery pushed an iron railing through this tree trunk. Northwood’s civilian war grave. Arctic Road, Cowes after 1942 raid..