
Seventeen Naval personnel from throughout NI died in HMS Gloucester when ‘the Fighting G’ was dive-bombed following the German airborne invasion of Crete in 1941. Two Coleraine men, Matthew Quigley and Hugh Stockman had very lucky escapes. In 1915 six Inniskilling Fusiliers from NI were casualties in Gallipoli at Gurkha Bluff. Six RAF aircrew lost in 1944 include Willam Rankin from Bushmills who is remembered at the Hague, Netherlands. One of today’s veterans, Patrick Morrison from Ballycastle survived WW1 and four shipwrecks, the last one being within sight of home – HMS Drake off Rathlin Island.