
Photo – On the anniversary of the surrender of Japan in WW2 the British High Commissioner pays tribute at the Singapore Memorial, Kranji War Cemetery, Singapore, on August 15, 2020. David Bell from Gracehill, a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, was among the many thousands of Allied POWs who died in Japanese camps along the Burma Siam Railway – made famous by the epic movie ‘Bridge On The River Kwai’. He was educated at Ballymena Academy and Trinity College, Dublin. Twenty-seven entries in 1915 reflect the cost of the Gallipoli campaign. Likewise, sixteen entries for 1917 reflect the Third Battle of Ypres. Adam Craig, also from Gracehill, and a father of five children, died in Belgium with the Royal Irish Rifles in 1917. George McArthur a Royal Navy sick bay attendant died in 1944. From St.Aubyn Street, he had been a member of the North Belfast Division of the St John Ambulance Brigade, and a staff sergeant in the Boys’ Brigade.