Smith, George Alexander

Ordinary Signalman

No. C/JX 402320 HMS Tracker, Royal Navy

Died as the result of a flying accident on Monday 10 January 1944 (aged 19)

Buried:

Belfast City Cemetery (Glenalina Extension Section D Grave 29)

Commemorated:

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

BIOGRAPHY

George Alexander Smith was born on 7 February 1924 in Tooting, London, and he was a son of John Alexander and Lilian Jeannie Smith of Napier, St George’s Avenue, Dovercourt, Essex.

Ordinary Signalman George Alexander Smith was killed when his aeroplane crashed into the Clyde on 10 January 1944.  It was concluded that the starboard wing broke off in a glide bombing exercise astern of HMS Tracker.  His body was washed up on the Copeland Islands off Donaghadee, and he was buried on 17 January 1941 in Belfast City Cemetery (Glenalina Extension Section D Grave 29).  The grave was owned by the ‘Commissioners for the Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland’.

There is a personal inscription on his CWGC headstone:

AT THE GOING DOWN

OF THE SUN

AND IN THE MORNING

WE WILL REMEMBER HIM