How many war graves are there in Huddersfield?

71 burials of the Second World War), while many others commemorate a handful of casualties or even just one or two.

Those familiar with Edgerton Cemetery may know it contains the grave of Victoria Cross holder Harry Coverdale who survived the First World War and died in 1955. Sgt Coverdale, who won his VC at Passchendaele in 1917, shares a headstone with his wife, Clara, who died in 1940.

His VC was awarded after he killed three German snipers, then rushed two machine-guns, killing or wounding the teams. Later he went out again with five men to capture a gun position, but when he saw a considerable number of the enemy advancing, withdrew his detachment man by man, he Geoffrey Norman Gaunt (right) with his friend Huddersfield-born David Moore Crook, a fighter pilot who died in a Spitfire crash in December 1944 himself being the last to retire. in Arras, France in April 1917 for saving

At Lockwood Cemetery there is the lives of badly-wounded colleagues. the final resting place of another He lived in Lockwood and died in VC recipient, Private Ernest Sykes, August 1949. who also survived the Great War. A total of 36 casualties are commemorated He was handed his bravery medal in Lockwood Cemetery, with a wide range of ages and ranks, among them Sgt Harry Webster, of the Home Guard, who died in 1940 aged 54, and Private Brian Butterworth of the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) who was 19 when he died in October 1940.

Over in Salendine Nook Baptist Chapelyard, there are eight Commonwealth War Graves.

One family gravestone remembers Geoffrey Norman Gaunt, a Spitfire pilot with 609 Squadron who was shot down and killed during an attack on German bombers over London on September 14 1940.

Gaunt, who was 24, was from a wellknown textile family and was a cousin of Huddersfield-born actor James Mason.