The Plymouth Naval Memorial is a war memorial in Devon, England to British and Commonwealth sailors who were lost in the World Wars.[1]
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After World War I, the Royal Navy wanted to find a way to commemorate sailors who had died at sea and had no known grave. An Admiralty committee recommended building memorials at the three main naval ports in Great Britain -- Plymouth, Chatham, and Portsmouth. The memorials at all three sites were designed by Sir Robert Lorimer with sculpture by Henry Poole.[1]
Following World War II, the naval memorials were expanded to commemorate the dead from that war. Sir Edward Maufe performed the architectural design for the expansion at Plymouth, and the sculpture was by Charles Wheeler and William McMillan.[1]
The Plymouth memorial also bears the names of sailors from Australia, South Africa, and India. The Plymouth Naval Memorial commemorates 7,251 sailors of the World War I and 15,933 of the World War II.[1]
Other memorials in Halifax and Victoria in Canada, Auckland, New Zealand, Mumbai, India, Chittagong, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong commemorate sailors who came from those parts of the Commonwealth. The Newfoundland Memorial at Beaumont Hamel in France bears the names of 229 Newfoundland sailors lost at sea during World War I.[2]
The Memorial is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.[2]
The Memorial is situated centrally on The Hoe which looks directly towards Plymouth Sound.[3]
The memorial consists of a central obelisk. The names on the memorial are arranged according to year of death. Those for the First World War appear on panels located around the obelisk. Those for the Second World War appear on panel located on the surrounding wall. Within each year, the names are group by service then by rank and surname.[3]