This area of Yorkshire had many RAF bases during World War II. In particular, No 6 RCAF Bomber Group had headquarters at Allerton Park in nearby Knaresborough. An area of the municipal cemetery was set aside for use as a war cemetery at the start of the war and received burials, mostly from after July 1943, mostly airmen, mostly Canadians, until after the end of the war. Burials are from northern airfields and the military wing of the now demolished Harrogate General Hospital in Starbeck. Within the cemetery, there are burials of or memorials to 23 World War I troops which are dispersed across the municipal part of the cemetery.
Wellington BK387 crashed near Oakworth, Yorkshire on the night of 2 January 1944. The main force of Bomber Command was out in strength that night and 383 aircraft were on their way to Berlin. The Operational Training Unit was based at Ossington eight miles north-west of Newark and it was from bases like these, flying the Vickers Wellington, that all operational crew passed through on their way to squadron service. At 20.00 hours, Wellington BK387 lifted off from the Ossington runway on what should have been just another training flight of four hours duration. The pilot, Warrant Officer Ernest Glass, brought the aircraft down through low cloud and subsequently crashed into the hillside at Tewitt Hall wood. Six young lives were lost in an instant. The crew of BK387 were all from Canada. If they had completed their training they would have joined one of the 16 Canadian Bomber Squadrons in Yorkshire. The remains of the aircraft were cleared away and little remains today at the site of the crash except for the burnt and broken trees. The crew were all buried at Stonefall Cemetery along with many of their fellow countrymen. All are buried on section C, row H, graves 11 to 16. The cause of this crash is unclear. The Canadian crewed Wellington BK387 was on a night training exercise when the aircraft descended through cloud and crashed into farmland. One witness account suggests Warrant Officer Glass was trying to land the plane in the fields. This same account quotes the landlord of the nearby Grouse Inn, who says he had gone to his outside toilet and, with the door open "he sat there frightened out of his skin as he could see the plane heading straight for his loo". The Wellington crashed just beyond the pub. The crew of BK387 were:
Warrant Officer E.I Glass
Flying Officer J.J McHenry
Warrant Officer J E Dalling,
Warrant Officer J Henfrey
Sergeant E Savage
Sergeant N W Crawford
Special memorials
A plaque in the cemetery records the names of 12 servicemen of World War II who were cremated at Harrogate Crematorium. A special memorial commemorates six World War I troops whose graves are in local churchyards around Yorkshire and cannot be maintained by the Commission. The actual grave of one of those commemorated, Edgar Audsley, has since been destroyed as part of development works on the site of South Ossett Baptist Burial Ground.
