Remembrance Day focus on poignant story of young Harrogate RAF man who is buried at Stonefall

None, perhaps, of those many stories worth telling on Remembrance Day can be more poignant than the story of young RAF crew man from Harrogate who, as is inscribed on his gravestone, "answered the call of duty, then came the call of God.”

Interred at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Harrogate’s Stonefall cemetery, the words written on the lonely headstone of lost hero Kenneth Beevers are brief but say much.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Beevers was working as an assistant on a newspaper, possibly the Harrogate Advertiser, after leaving Harrogate Grammar School.

Living in the middle of Harrogate on Tower Street with his parents, 61-year-old Henry, a grocer, and 59-year-old Eleanor who had been married at St Peter’s Church in 1902, Kenneth joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.

On April 20, 1941 an RAF Handley Page Harrow twin-engined transport aircraft, K7015, of 271 squadron took off from RAF Doncaster on a training flight.

The pilot, 30-year-old Edward Procyk, was from Poland but the rest of the crew was English - Flight Sergeant Price, there to train three young wireless operators and air gunners, Kenneth Moore aged 25, Kenneth Robbins age unknown, and Kenneth Beevers aged just 21.

Tragically, one of the plane’s engines caught fire when they were flying over Devon.

The pilot attempted to land the plane in fields but failed it crashed near Okehampton killing the pilot and the three trainees though, somehow Sergeant Price survived.

Though proud of his service, how distraught his parents and his sister Marjorie must have been.

His remains were returned home to Harrogate and were interred in grave number 5977 in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Stonefall Cemetery in Harrogate.

As a result, Kenneth Beevers does not lie buried with the rest of his crew as was usually the case.

Procyk and Moore lie in Exeter High Cemetery near to where they died.

Robbins is buried in Manchester Southern Cemetery near to where he lived.

Beever’s gravestone numbered 597 bears an epitaph which includes the words: “He answered the call of duty, then came the call of God.”

Kenneth Beever's family continued living in Tower Street in Harrogate after the Second World War ended, visiting his grave, his mother passing away in 1955 and his father in 1958.

All is history now and it’s been 81 years since that fateful flight that ended the young Harrogate man’s war.

On Sunday, November 13 the Harrogate district will come together to remember Kenneth – and his family – along with the thousands of others who sacrificed themselves for their country in the cruel waste of war.

Among the lengthy lost of Remembrance events will be a short service of remembrance and at 1pm organised by the Harrogate Brigantes Rotary.

Remembrance Day has been observed in Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces members who died in the line of duty.

Remembrance Day is observed at 11am on November 11 – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – to mark the precise end of the First World War on November 11, 1918.