Hamilton Road Cemetery is a combined municipal and military burial ground situated in the coastal town of Deal, Kent, in South East England.

The ceremony was very well-attended, and included two lieutenant generals, a colonel who was also the holder of the Victoria Cross, a major, Deal's mayor, the town serjeant bearing the ceremonial mace, councillors, aldermen, priests from three different churches and denominations, Walmer's Council, representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross, St. John Ambulance, The Royal British Legion, a large number of war veterans from the Volunteers Old Comrades' Association, and a Guard of Honour from the Royal Marines, who also provided a party of buglers.

The ceremony, as reported in the Saturday 14 November 1925 edition of The Deal, Walmer, and Sandwich Mercury newspaper, included the full text of his speech, reproduced here below:[27] This cross of sacrifice which I have been privileged to unveil today is a visible symbol of what is invisible, of that which we carry in our hearts – the memory of, and the gratitude to, those who suffered, fought, and died for us – fought and endured , and that [what] is even more admirable than fighting and endurance.

they passed through storm into calm – "The worst turns to best, the bleak months end, the elements rage, and vaunting breezes that rave shall dwindle, shall change, shall become first peace out of pain, then light."

"There had been no military burials for a generation by the outbreak of World War II, and the need to bury new casualties from the British Expeditionary Force and from action in the English Channel meant the establishment of a new dedicated section in the far northern corner of the cemetery grounds.

In Plot C, Block 8 are the graves of three of a four-man Luftwaffe bomber crew whose aircraft, a Dornier Do 17, 3495 U5+DM from Kampfgeschwader 4, a type of plane sometimes referred to as the Fliegender Bleistift (German: "flying pencil"), had crashed into the sea at 20:40 hours on 9 November 1940, of unknown causes, off the coast of Kingsdown, Kent.

However, the records of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (VDK),[51] Dover District Council, and the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) indicate that his body was found on the foreshore of the old Parish of Sholden, on the dunes between Sandown Castle, Kent and the Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club on 15 November 1940, three days after his comrades had been buried in the Hamilton Road Cemetery, and six days after the crash.

BBC South East[62] has also run a story on this, featuring a report by Peter Whittlesea, which links the remains specifically to 3495 U5+DM, though this has yet to be proven.

The TV report is erroneous, listing the date of the crash as the 12th, and claiming that the body of the pilot was washed up and buried at the cemetery, whereas in fact Leutnant Mollenhauer was interred elsewhere.

It [the bomber] came across the Kingsdown Golf Links and disappeared over the edge of the cliff, and I ran to the edge of the cliff to see if I could see any more of it, but it had disappeared and I just assumed that it had fallen into the sea.The TV report also shows footage of an aircraft's tail section, which at the time was being reserved from degradation by being kept submerged in a children's paddling pool of a local public house.

1160, call sign 5K+AR, was discovered partially buried and largely intact in the nearby Goodwin Sands on 3 September 2010, and was raised successfully by a salvage company on 10 June 2013.

This bombing raid at 13:20 on a cold Friday afternoon resulted in severe damage to Union Road, Middle Street, destroyed the Governor's Quarters in Deal Castle, and caused the deaths of eight civilians including three children, the youngest of which was two years old.

An eyewitness account from a lady called Mary Osbourn, with classic period British contempt for German attacks, recounts what happened when she, who was in the greengrocers buying vegetables at the time, saw the bombers overhead: I went straight across the road and up by Simmonds Jewellers and when I reached the corner of Middle Street, I decided to turn left through Boatman's Alley.

Although it was Canterbury that was specifically targeted at the end of May and early June 1942, Deal was to see four air raids that caused significant loss of life during the Spring, Summer, and Autumn of this year.

On 6 May 1942, bombs were dropped from what one eyewitness, Peggy Oatridge, called Messerschmitt fighter-bombers, on Alfred Square, Park Lane, and Mill Road.

It appears that at least one pilot missed his intended target, the Gas Works, and instead the bomb ricocheted off the side of a building, skidded across the road, and then detonated in front of a small parade of shops and a house on the corner of Alfred Square.

They were: Two days later, on 8 May, two children died in an air raid which killed a member of the Home Guard (see James Thomas Bonner, above).

[99] The casualties were as follows: At 9 am on the morning of 22 October, the Luftwaffe hit non-strategic targets in a civilian area of Deal, specifically the High Street and College Road (for the second time in less than a week) causing great loss of life, as many people were out shopping.

The casualties were: Situated so close to Deal's main railway line, Cannon Street was once again on the receiving end of imprecise Luftwaffe ordnance.

[137] The event was not mentioned at all in the local newspaper, perhaps because of wartime restrictions on reporting, or perhaps because of the desire not to give the enemy any useful propaganda, or perhaps simply because the authorities did not wish to let the German gunners know where their shells had landed so that this information could be used to improve their fire-control.

There had been no air raid siren but we could hear a plane and thought it one of ours — suddenly we heard the loud swish of bombs falling and our building shook.

The road was full of potholes, flints and lumps of concrete; water was escaping everywhere from the mains, as well as gas, so people were warned not to smoke.

Eventually, with the help of her husband and a passing naval officer her body was located under the kitchen table.I waited while her remains were extracted and wrapped in two army blankets.

[139]On St. George's Day, 1964, nine of the 46 survivors then remaining of the 1918 Zeebrugge Raid (from the 1,700 who originally took part) commemorated their lost in a service presided over by the Commandant-General of the Royal Marines, General Sir Malcolm Cartwright-Taylor, KCB, and the Mayor of Deal, Alderman Norman Cavell, JP.

It was attended by local dignitaries, representatives from the armed forces, and a personal message from Sir Winston Churchill, himself a freeman of the town of Deal, was read out to those assembled.

I send all those at the ceremony, and in particular the survivors, relatives and friends of those who took part in the Zeebrugge raid, my greetings and warm good wishes.The extensive newspaper coverage of the event[149][150] notes that the main ceremony took place at the Depot in the main barracks in Deal, and that on 24 April, a visit was arranged to St James's Cemetery in Dover[151] where many casualties from the raid were buried some forty-six years previously, and where there is a special "Zeebrugge" Plot with its own Cross of Sacrifice,[152] and a remembrance service is held on St. George's Day.

Their youngest comrades in arms would have, by this time, been pensioners, and there is only a slight chance that they would have been known or remembered personally by the few remaining ex-Royal Marines Light Infantry of the 4th Battalion who were still alive in 1964.

There were no new military interments in the Hamilton Road cemetery after the end of World War II, and it returned to its original role as a municipal facility.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission continued to maintain the military plots of friend and foe alike; the grass was neatly cut, the Portland stone scrubbed clean, but the cemetery's honoured dead were beginning to fade into memory.

[154] Three of the eleven Bandsmen killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army were subsequently buried in the Hamilton Road cemetery, the first military burials in some forty-two years.