BERE Ferrers and Bere Alston together lost 41 men in the First World War, and both villages have war memorials of similar design. Bere Ferrers war memorial, in the centre of the village, has an additional plaque on an inclined slab at the base, commemorating a tragic accident which occurred at Bere Ferrers railway station on 24 September 1917. Ten soldiers from New Zealand were killed on the track just outside the Bere Ferrers station platform. These soldiers were from the 28th Reinforcements of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Conscription had been introduced to New Zealand on August 1, 1916 and about 103,000 served overseas. On that fateful September day some of these troops, having arrived in Plymouth Sound from New Zealand on the troopships Ulimaroa and Norman, were on their way to Sling Camp on Salisbury Plain to complete their training. Their train had left Plymouth Friary Station on time at 3pm and the soldiers, who had not had anything to eat since 6am, had been told that at the train's first stop in Exeter, two men from each carriage could alight from the train and collect food from the guard's van. Unfortunately, in response to a signal, their train made an unscheduled stop at Bere Ferrers railway station at 3.52pm because the line was not clear ahead. Because the troops' train was so long, with eighteen coaches, the end carriages were outside the Bere Ferrers station platform. The signalman at Bere Ferrers had parked the train in the station bypass in order to let an express train through, as it was a single track main line at the time of the accident. The troops aboard the coaches outside the station platform thought that they had arrived at Exeter station. Two men from each coach jumped down onto the track to collect the promised rations from the guard's van, assuming the door they had entered the train by was the exit door. The train had barely stopped when the London Waterloo to Plymouth express train came through. Charles Henry Thorn of Exeter, the fireman on this train, later reported to the Coroner's jury that on approaching Bere Ferrers station, they saw a stationary train standing in the station siding. As the express train approached Bere Ferrers, the driver gave a blast on the whistle. However, as there was a sharp turn on the approach to Bere Ferrers station he was unable to see the soldiers standing on the main track until it was too late. His train was travelling at 40 mph. Nine men (Privates William Gillanders, William Greaves, John Jackson, Joseph Judge, Chudleigh Kirton, Baron McBryde, Richard McKenna, John Warden and Sidney West) were killed instantly and a tenth man, Private William Trussell, died later in Tavistock Hospital. Two other men, Privates Nathaniel Johnston Gatley and Robert James Barnes, had their arms broken. The driver of the express train applied the brakes in vain and it eventually came to a halt a quarter of a mile beyond Bere Ferrers station. The Coroner's Jury on October 1, 1917 recorded a verdict of accidental death and the deceased were buried at Efford Cemetry, Plymouth, in graves maintained by the Imperial War Graves Commission. In 1918 a brass memorial plaque was put up in St Andrew's Church, Bere Ferrers, and later that year another plaque was put up at Bere Ferrers railway station. In 2001, following a request by the New Zealand Army Museum, a plaque was unveiled at the war memorial in the centre of Bere Ferrers. A service of remembrance for the ten New Zealand soldiers who had been killed at Bere Ferrers railway station was held in the centre of the village on 24 September 2009.