​​St Nicolas Church, Brockenhurst

​​St Nicolas Church is located around 0.8km (half a mile) from Brockenhurst village centre. Just inside the covered entrance into the church is a display board. This details the stories of ten local men from Brockenhurst who died during service between 1939 and 1945.

​The three burials of those who died during the Second World War are: Dennis Watson, died 30 November 1942 whilst serving in the Royal Navy, Flying Officer James Bannister, Royal Air Force (RAF), died on 21 April 1944, and Flight Lieutenant Alfred Shilleto, RAF who died on 13 July 1944.

​Bannister had taken off from RAF Walton in an unarmed Miles Master aircraft for a night navigation exercise. He was intercepted by a German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt 410 aircraft. He was shot down and killed instantly. In 1942 he had served in the siege of Malta and wrote a poem ‘Lines by a staff officer who sees no future in it.’ He wrote his final poem three days before he was killed, entitled ‘If I should go’.

​Shiletto was a sole pilot of a Vickers Wellington aircraft that took off from Market Harbourgh for a test flight. It is recorded that he suffered a midair collision with another aircraft.

​The churchyard contains a Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial to New Zealand, as well as a plot containing 100 burials alone of New Zealand men who died during the First World War. This is located within the churchyard to the eastern side north of the church itself. Within the church are numerous commemorative and information panels detailing the New Zealanders during the First World War at Brockenhurst. This includes an impressive stained-glass window.