I was flipping through my photos from Lake View Cemetery the other night when I noticed something unusual about this particular monument.
Did you catch it? Lt. Higgins served in the Royal Air Force. So what is a young man who died while serving in a Royal Air Force during the First World War doing buried in a Cleveland cemetery?
Unfortunately, my research has presently come up short on that count. I’ve found a number of mentions of Harold Higgins that match his name, basic rank (they state he was specifically a Second Lieutenant), date of death, and branch of service. Except that they all state he is buried in a churchyard in the United Kingdom. One such mention is on a page for Canadian Veterans Affairs, and another is on a website entitled Canada at War. I’ve determined that the churchyard mentioned – St. Andrews in Cranwell, Lincolnshire – has a large number of military graves due to its proximity to an Air Force school. At least one transcription has Higgins listed but with a different date of death in the same month and year. So maybe this monument in Lake View is a cenotaph, or maybe there were two Harold Higgins whose information has become melded over the years.
