CWG

Gander Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery

The cemetery is located a quarter mile north of the Trans Canada Highway and two miles east of the town of Gander . It contains the graves of 100 Commonwealth personnel who lost their lives in and around Newfoundland during the second World War. It also contains a number of post war civilian graves.

I first visited the cemetery in 1947 and 1948 while working at Gander Airport as a teenager and remembered the cemetery as rows of white crosses making the graves. I have always wanted to go back and see the cemetery again, but it was fifty years before I finally took the time to stop in Gander in 1997, and spend a couple of hours in the cemetery. This time, as I walked among the graves , now marked by identical headstones and read the names (and the epitath's. which had been inscribed at the request of relatives) , I came away determined to learn more about these people and the events surrounding their deaths.

For the past eighteen months I have been collecting material and researching records at the National Archives, Militaary Directorate of History, and the Newfoundland Provincial Archives. in the hope that my efforts will eventually result in a book, telling the stories , and dedicated to the memory of these young men who lost their lives in the service of their country.

By the end of the war there were at least 52 American casualties who had been killed in aircraft accidents, buried in the cemetery. Their remains were exhumed in Nov 1945, and first taken to Ft Pepperrell in St Johns, and later returned to USA.

Grave Listings
Click here for the Name, age, service and location of next of kin for the deceased Commonwealth personnel, sorted by date of death and (in most coases) a very brief description of the circumstances leading to death.
Click here for a listing sorted in alphabetical order

Photo of W/C McNabb -Sep 1942
Senior RCAF Protestant Chaplain who was visiting Gander- There were 15 graves at this time although not all are visible. (First photo of cemetery I could find.)

Photo of cemetry taken in 1944
Cemetery now contained 94 Commonwealth graves and those of 22 United States personnel. in and around Gander .

United States Personnel

Photo of American wartime funeral service at Gander Cemetery..

By the end of the war there were at least 52 American graves in the Gander cemetery. Most died in the final years of the war. Remains were exhumed in Nov 1945, and first taken to Ft Pepperrell in St Johns and later returned to USA.
Click for names and dates of 49 of these personnel.

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As I work on the stories I will post, and rotate the DRAFT of several of the
stores of the 17 aircraft crashes and other incidents in which the Commonwealth personnel were killed.

The first fatal aircraft crash at Gander, which took the lives of its six crewmembers took place on 26 Jul 1941. Click here for the story of Digby 742

The last Gander funeral for WW2 casualties took place three years after the war. Click for the story of Hudson 719

Click here for the story of S/L Small and four other members of his crew who were killed in the crash of Canso 9737 shortly after taking off from Gander on 7 January 1943.

Click here for the story of Cpl Elkin and AC2's Cummings and Truesdale who lost thier lives in the sinking of the SS Caribou, after it was sunk by a German U-Baot in the Cabot Strait, early on the morning of 14 Oct 1942.

Click here for the story of F/L LeBlanc, who, with his three crew, and four passengers died when their Hudson aircraft crashed while taking off from the new airport at Torbay on 6 May 1942.

Click here for the story of the Canso crash at Botwood in Nov 1943 which took the lives of seven of the twelve persons on board the aircraft. The story is not directly related to the Gander cemetery as the bodies of the seven victims were never recovered. ( Had they been recovered they would have been buried at Gander.)

Click here for the story of Canso 9833 which ran into a ditch at the side of the runway at Gander. The pilot F/L Rae was fatally injured and died in hospital shortly after the accident.

Click here for the story of Sgt Ruggles who lost his life when his Hurricane stalled and crashed near Hopeall, Trinity Bay.

Click here for the story of F/O Lobb who lost his life when his Hurricane crashed near Gander while on a dawn patrol.

Click here for the story of Lac Connah MM, a decorated veteran of WW1, who died during a violent story on board the SS Lady Rodney on a voyage from Halifax to St John's.

Click here for the story of Ventura 2169 which crashed while taking-off at Torbay on its way to protect a convey. The four members of the crew were killed.

Click here for the story of the Ventura 2160 which crashed during a training exercise at Torbay airport, taking the lives of the three man crew.

(Please remember these stories are DRAFT's and do not be too critical of the English structure, spelling and punctuation- I will need a good Editor to help me here.)