Over the last few weeks, Museum personnel and volunteers have worked hard to help gather grave stone rubbings of WWII-era British service personnel buried in coastal Virginia and North Carolina. This was all in aid of the Commemorative Air Force’s Bring the Boys Back Home campaign discussed in several recent articles. While we were successful in this mission, delivering our efforts to the CAF when their Douglas R4D, Ready 4 Duty, stopped by the Museum over Easter Weekend, there was one young lad whose tomb we were unable to visit before the aircraft’s departure for Europe. This was partly due to the travel distance involved - several hundred miles lie between my home and Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina - but also because the graveyard is still difficult to access due to the devastation left in Hurricane Helene’s wake.
The Asheville area of North Carolina suffered greatly during Hurricane Helene last September, with dozens of residents losing their lives and thousands more upended by its unprecedented fury. Nestled within a leafy suburb, Riverside Cemetery is a beloved city landmark, with numerous elegant memorials bearing many well-known names from America’s past. Even here, though, one sees ample evidence of the the storm’s wrath. Reminiscent of a battlefield in places, the sawn stumps of once massive trees tilt against the turf every few dozen feet, roots erupting from earthen scars on their windward sides. Like the region around it, this sacred place is still in recovery, the wounds so evident more than half a year later that it remains open to visitors only by private appointment. But here I am, driving through its wrought iron gates, then negotiating the narrowing ribbon of asphalt terraced along its steep terrain. It’s drizzling as I pull up where my GPS suggests, but I’m still unsure whether I’ve found the correct location.
Light rain prickled the air as I stepped out of my car and trudged up the hillside towards a cluster of evenly-spaced headstones sheltering near the tree line. I could hear the droplets pattering against the leaves amidst the lilt of birdsong surrounding me; the first blush of spring settling in, judging by the chorus. The somber skies seemed fitting though, given my task. As I grew closer, I could see small American flags planted beside each tombstone in the first few rows of graves. The others beyond lay unadorned, but it was soon apparent that each marble slab in this area marked the final resting place of a military veteran. I felt guilty for scanning their names so quickly, when all I wanted was to pay each man the respect they deserved. But I didn’t have the time. I was here to find just one lost soul, that of 20 year-old Royal Navy Able Seaman Walter Neville Lavington - someone whose name I had never heard of until a week earlier, but now knew I would never forget.
I found his grave almost immediately, which surprised me since military graves (like the military arms themselves) are almost unerringly uniform in appearance. Lavington’s tomb looked so much paler than those around it, which is probably what drew my attention so swiftly. Out of curiosity, I later looked up the original order forms for the two gravestones on either side of Lavington’s. They revealed that, while the marble for each headstone was hewn from the same quarry in Tate, Georgia, the work took place decades apart. Lavington’s was erected in February 1945, whilst those for WWI US Infantry veterans Leon Nelson Bellisle on his right and Peter Frank Mioduserski on his left, both dated from June 1971. Oddly, the latter two have darkened significantly in comparison - likely because the section of stone they came from reacted more negatively to local air pollutants.
Thankfully, the drizzle soon disappeared and sunshine began to part the grey skies, now rippled with blue. As I dried off Lavington’s headstone with a towel, my fingers chilled to its touch. It had occurred to me that marble made an apt choice for the gravestone of a sailor. Its calcium carbonate structure comprises the metamorphosed remains of tiny, prehistoric marine creatures, the shells of which gathered by their trillion on the seabed hundreds of millions of years ago and slowly, under immense heat and pressure, transformed into white crystalline rock, which plate tectonics eventually thrust up to the earth’s surface.
I could feel the day’s rising heat warming my back as I carefully wrapped the rubbing paper against Lavington’s grave, binding it tightly to the surface with painter’s tape looped around its back, the tape having refused to adhere to the marble itself. Rubbing the stone proved more challenging than I suspected; the dense, ruddy-brown wax puck I used required significant pressure to trace the gravestone’s markings onto the paper with the kind of definition required. As I worked, I thought of Lavington’s life, and the tragic circumstances which brought this young man to his end on October 26th, 1944, so far from his home, his loved ones - and even his shipmates, by then half way across the world doing battle against the Japanese off the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
Finding details about this sailor’s short life proved difficult, mind you. I learned that he was born during September 1924 in St.Albans, Hertfordshire (just a 25 mile drive from my childhood home near Windsor) but spent most of his youth in Portsmouth, where his father, a WWI Royal Navy veteran, served as a Chief Petty Officer specializing in telegraphy. Walter enlisted in the Royal Navy himself as a Boy Seaman (2nd Class) on May 5th, 1940 when he was just fifteen years old - something which required the written approval of both his parents. Where he undertook his training is uncertain at present, but it was likely at a shore establishment (HMS St.George) on the Isle of Man, where many Boy Sailors received such instruction in WWII due to its relative safety in the Irish Sea away from enemy action. Here he would have learned everything necessary to become a proficient sailor, both on and off the waves, from navigation to the rules of the sea, along with rifle training, gunnery and numerous other skills, all while adhering to the strict discipline demanded by the ‘Senior Service’. After about a year, a successful graduate from this program usually joined a ship at sea as a Boy Seaman (1st Class). Lavington must have impressed his superiors, since he progressed two ranks more to become an Able Seaman (AB) by late 1942.
Although we have yet to determine which ships AB Lavington served on prior to 1943, nor his precise roles aboard these vessels, we do know that he first arrived in Norfolk, Virginia aboard the armored British aircraft carrier, HMS Indomitable. The ship docked at the Norfolk Navy Yards in need of an extensive refit in a safe harbor on August 31, 1943. The emergency work was necessary due to battle damage Indomitable incurred six weeks earlier in the Ionian Sea. The ship, with its three squadrons of Supermarine Seafire Mk.IIs (Nos.807, 880 & 899) and one with Fairey Albacores (No. 817) was part of Force H, providing cover for the Allied invasion of Sicily in Operation HUSKY (some 3,200 vessels took part, a record for the time).
The aircraft deck aboard HMS Indomitable showing the carriers array of Seafires prior to the invasion of Sicily. (image via ArmoredCarriers)
Fairey Albacores aboard HMS Indomitable during WWII. The Albacore, a successor to the earlier Swordfish, served as a light bomber and torpedo plane aboard Royal Navy carriers until being replaced by the Fairey Barracuda in 1943.
The invasion was successfully carried out, but early in the moonlight morning of July 16th, a lone Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 slipped through the radar screen, being misidentified as a returning Fairey Albacore. The bomber dropped a single torpedo into the water 300 yards from the carrier, whose crew attempted evasive action just too late to avoid catastrophe. The weapon detonated below the armor belt on the ship’s port side, blasting a 24 foot hole in her hull and rapidly flooding the port boiler room. One can only imagine what it must have been like for those aboard the ship in those terrifying moments, nor what AB Lavington himself experienced (we are presently unsure of his precise work station). Seven sailors died in the attack and the carrier quickly developed a 13º list as the seawater rushed in. Thankfully, the ship’s captain ordered counter flooding on the starboard side to prevent Indomitable from capsizing.
Unable to remain on station, Indomitable limped off for Malta with two battleships, HMS Warspite and HMS Valiant as protection. She arrived safely within the island’s Grand Harbor just twelve hours after the attack. Initial repairs began immediately, albeit regularly interrupted by enemy bombing raids trying to finish the ship off. But Indomitable lived up to her name, surviving the onslaught and recovering sufficiently for the journey to Gibraltar ten days later, and then across the Atlantic in mid-August to Norfolk, Virginia for more formal repairs. This was the ship’s second visit to Norfolk for repairs, having been badly bombed during Operation PEDESTAL (the resupply mission to Malta) in August, 1942. It is possible that Lavington was aboard the ship for that terrifying misadventure also, but that remains unclear at present.
Walter Lavington fell seriously ill with tuberculosis (TB) during the transatlantic crossing aboard Indomitable in August 1943. It is unclear when he contracted this once-prolific and frequently fatal infection which spreads via exposure to airborne bacteria. According to the Center for Disease Control, it often manifests itself within a few weeks of first contact, so he may have caught it while ashore in Malta or Gibraltar during Indomitable's initial repair periods, although the hot, humid conditions aboard his ship would also have proved ample breeding grounds for TB. Lavington was likely diagnosed at, or soon after his arrival in Virginia, since he was released from the ship’s company (though not discharged) on September 3rd, 1943 - presumably heading to a naval hospital in Norfolk. As his situation worsened, Lavington was transferred on October 16th to the Oteen Veterans Administration Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, then the nation’s largest TB sanatorium, with a thousand beds on hand. Oddly, the city of Asheville itself owes its existence to the disease, as its clean mountain air drew thousands of sufferers hoping for a cure, or at least a better climate for controlling their symptoms.
Walter Neville Lavington lingered on at the VA Hospital in Asheville until October 26th, 1944. He was buried in the soldiers' plot at Riverside Cemetery the day after following a service catered by the Morris-Gearing Funeral Home with the Canadian-born, Episcopalian minister, Reverend John Howard Winslow Rhys presiding. In a poignant nod to what might have been, researcher Elizabeth Bugie (along with Albert Schatz and Selman Waksman) discovered the antibacterial agent Streptomycin in early 1944, the first antibiotic to successfully treat TB. Sadly this development proved just too late to save AB Lavington, nor the two men buried either side of him who succumbed similarly in the same hospital within weeks of each other.
One can only imagine the loneliness of Lavington's final year, being so far removed from those he knew and loved. While he may not have died in battle, his sacrifice was no less significant nor less worthy of memorializing. With his tombstone rubbing traveling (by mail) to Britain for the commemoration of VE Day today, I am hopeful his name will resonate anew in the land of his birth - alongside all those others who failed to return from the USA during WWII. Our museum is very proud to have played a small role in this joint endeavor to Bring the Boys Back Home...
Many thanks indeed to the City of Asheville Parks & Recreation Department, to the team at Riverside Cemetery, and especially to the support from their manager, Jonathan Neary, who made my visit to AB Lavington’s grave possible.
As a final footnote, we would really appreciate learning more about AB Walter Neville Lavington, should anyone be able to help us in that endeavor. We are especially keen to see a photograph of him and to learn about his role aboard HMS Indomitable.