Harrogate (Stonefall) Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery

Harrogate Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of World War I and World War II located on the outskirts of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England.The cemetery grounds are located next to the main municipal cemetery and crematorium for the district. in Wetherby Road.FoundationThis area of Yorkshire had many RAF bases during World War II. In particular, No 6 RCAF Bomber Group had headquarters at Allerton Park in nearby Knaresborough.An area of the municipal cemetery was set aside for use as a war cemetery at the start of the war and received burials, mostly from after July 1943, mostly airmen, mostly Canadians, until after the end of the war. Burials are from northern airfields and the military wing of the now demolished Harrogate General Hospital in Starbeck.Within the cemetery, there are burials of or memorials to 23 World War I troops which are dispersed across the municipal part of the cemetery.Notable gravesMany of the burials are from aircrews killed in training or on the ground or who died later in the local hospital. Amongst the burials in the cemetery are three (all Canadians) of the seven crew of a Lancaster bomber that crashed on Helmsley Moor on the morning of 17 May 1944. Five burials (all serving in the RCAF, but two were from the United States) in adjoining plots are of the crew of Halifax bomber EB203, which crashed into a railway bridge in Bishop Monkton on 15 April 1944.