Pte. Douglas Clark

It is curious that although the South African Depart­ment of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs) was informed of all developments, nothing was communicated to Clarke's unsuspecting parents, George and Liz Clarke, on the family farm in Zululand. They were to learn of the loss of their first son, Douglas, from the Red Cross as long as four months after the event. The family was given to understand that Douglas had perished in a snowstorm with about 15 RAF men, and that he was buried in a communal grave in Geneva.

Douglas was not the only son the Clarkes lost in the war. On 9 September 1942 their second son Cecil had died, apparently of cerebral malaria and complications, in a notoriously ill-equipped Italian POW camp near Bari. He was just 22. Adequate medical attention was virtually non-existent in most Italian POW camps. The loss of both sons was a hard blow to the parents.[19]

Ironically, Douglas's untimely death occurred on the same Saturday as his 23-year-old sister Eileen got married in the Eshowe Methodist Church, far away in sunny South Africa. She was to write to me 52 years later: "I got married on 20 January 1945, one of the hottest days in the Nkwalini Valley and sadly one of the coldest in the Alps where my brother died. Had I only known of that sad event I would never have married on that day."[20] Brother and sister had been particularly close, and had exchanged as many brief messages as a prisoner of war in Italy was allowed.

All that remains today as a tangible reminder of that infamous day is Pte. Clarke's war grave no. 120 in the British military section of St. Martin's cemetery, Vevey (Vaud). His regulation white tombstone shows the UDF Springbok emblem in low relief, encircled with the Union of South Africa's bilingual motto:

UNION IS STRENGTH/EENDRAG MAAK MAG

Also recorded is his serviceman's number (1577), his regiment (UMR), and the date of his death.

The manicured lawns, lovingly pruned rose bushes and gently whispering cypress trees of this neatly kept cemetery belie the stormy drama surrounding the young South African's death in a "foreign field".

Another South African soldier sleeps next to Clarke –Cpl. John Rodrick Chisholm (9.1.1908-2.2.1945), Trans­vaal Scottish Regiment. There is a dearth of information about this soldier. His UDF Record of Service shows that he arrived in Egypt in May 1941, was wounded in September, and was taken prisoner in November. He died in a Geneva hospital on 2 February 1945 "whilst being repatriated".[21] Chisholm had probably been a POW in Germany (there is no record of him having been an evade). We may . assume that he, because he was either seriously wounded or seriously ill, qualified in terms of Art. 68 Part IV of the Geneva Convention (Direct Repatriation and Accommodation in a Neutral Country) for repatriation from Germany via Switzerland to his African homeland to Which, however, he never returned.

For the record, an even older South African war grave can be seen in the cemetery. Back in 1915 Pte. Edward James Lawlor of Johannesburg had sailed on board a troopship to the UK with hopes of joining the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force in. France during the First World War. However, he developed lung trouble while undergoing artillery training in England. He had risen to the rank of acting captain, but had to be invalidated home. After the war he sought treatment for his affected lungs in Switzerland (he had survived a gas attack on London in October 1917). A/Capt. Lawlor, however, died in Leysin on 8 January 1921.[22]

  John J. McGowan and Donald E. Lundgren

John McGowan and Donald Lundgren were initially buried in the American military cemetery at Munsingen (Berne) on 23 January. However, in 1948 the remains of all 61 USAAF personnel were exhumed. Most were reburied in the large military cemetery at Epinal in France. The remains of the others, including McGowan's and Lundgren's, were flown back to the United States for reburial.[23] (References)