Germany

List updated May 20, 2008

Country Total = 169

169 graves in 13 cemeteries

Completed = 168 (or 99.40%)

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SAGE WAR CEMETERY - Oldenburg, Niedersachsen

Sage is a village 24 kilometres south of Oldenburg, a town 43 kilometres west of Bremen and 28 kilometres north of the main road from Bremen to Holland. The cemetery lies 2 kilometres south of the village on the west side of the road to Osnabruck. From the A1 Bremen/Munster motorway visitors should leave at the Wildeshousen Nord junction and take 213 following signs for Alhorn and Oldenburg. After 8 kilometres, and immediately after the village of Alhorn, turn right at the roundabout and follow signs for Oldenburg along the Oldenburgerstrasse. The cemetery lies on the left hand side of the road 4 kilometres from Alhorn. Sage was on the line of the Allied advance across northern Germany in 1945 but most of those buried at Sage War Cemetery were airmen lost in bombing raids over northern Euope whose graves were brought in from cemeteries in the Frisian Islands and other parts of north-west Germany. Sage War Cemetery contains 948 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 158 of them unidentified. There are also 23 war graves of other nationalities, most of them Polish.

Name: WEBB, (RALPH) CULTRA VALLANCE
Initials: C V
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Sergeant (W.Op./Air Gnr.)
Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve
Unit Text: 103 Sqdn.
Date of Death: 03/07/1942
Service No: 920594
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Coll. grave 14. B. 9-10.

There is also a POW who was pressured into the British Free Corps and died serving with the Germans. We have no idea where he is buried and would welcome any thoughts.

L P Van Heerden, 12-Feb-1945, British Free Corps, died in bombing of Dresden. L. P. Van Heerden was known as ‘Vic’ Van Heerden to his fellow members of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). He was a member of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and had then transferred into the LRDG. Van Heerden would have been a member of either S1 or S2 (Southern Rhodesian patrol) of ‘B’ Squadron of the LRDG. He was captured in the Dodecanese Islands on a operation with this unit in October 1943. Van Heerden, along with a number of other Commonwealth soldiers, was press-ganged into joining the BFC during his stay at Stalag III-A in Luckenwalde. This Stalag was a special camp set up for the interrogation of POWs as soon as possible after their individual capture in September and October 1943. The POW’s were often slightly wounded, or in shock, as they were shipped to Luckenwalde. Once they arrived they were strip searched, and forced to watch as their uniforms and identity papers were destroyed. They were then placed on strict rations, and in some instances, forced to only wear a blanket in their cell. All of the men were placed in solitary confinement. These men were given the option of spending the rest of the war in these conditions, or to join the BFC. A few unfortunates would agree under this duress to give in to the pressure, and these men were moved to the BFC headquarters on the Schonholtzerstrasse in Pankow during October and November of 1943. The vast majority of these men, after they overcame their initial treatment at the hands of the Germans, would demand to leave the unit. Finally Van Heerden, and the other men that wanted to leave, were sent to the isolation camp at Dronnewitz just before Christmas 1943. At Dronnewitz, the men were employed on local farms. Van Heerden is believed to have returned to the BFC at some point, and during the bombing of Dresden on February 12th, 1945 was killed. He was the only individual that was killed during service with the BFC.