Relation with Lake (class): Lake Casualty Cemetery (LCC)  
Total nr. of casualties buried here (TC): 5 end WW2, today: 5. 
Lake casualties, initially, end WW2 (LC-I): 5
Unknown today: 2
of which unknown from Lake (LC-U): 2
of which unknown from North Sea (NS-U): 0
Initial burial site in WW2: yes, Lake Cemetery east side of Lake (LCE)
Post war burial site for concentration of war graves: no.
Cemetery with Lake casualties today: yes (LCE).



        
SCHARL

Scharl ('Skarl') is a remote hamlet with 3 farms and a small cemetery and was part of the community Hemelumer Oldeferd with Koudum as centre. Scharl is build on an ancient man made hill ('terp'), some 200 meters inland from the dike. A dike that apparently wasn't always there or considered unreliable. In WW2 Scharl had about 3km of dike and 'the Red Cliff' to guard. The Red Cliff is an ice-age dune covered with clay elevation in the landscape, which was enclosed in the body of the dike. It has a nice view over the Old Zuyder Sea (Lake IJsselmeer). A monument commemorates an invasion here by the Hollanders in the year 1345. This attack was successfully repelled by the Frisians with their battle cry "leaver dea as sleaf" (rather dead than slave). 

Five Allied airmen washed ashore here, or were found by the fishermen of nearby Laaksum ('Laaxum'). The airmen were buried in Scharl, all in a 1 year time frame: between August/September 1941 and 6th of October 1942.

         

Dutch name cemetery: Begr. pl. Skarl.  
Full name: Hemelumer Oldeferd (Scharl) General Cemetery.
Address (usable for car navigation):
Skarl 6, Scharl.

For reaction or comments; send us an email,
see address and info at CONTACT.
Please use as subject title: 'Scharl'.










End of the burials in Scharl, Stavoren took over.

There were no Germans stationed in Scharl. It appears that after the last burial on October 6th 1942, they ordered a halt on the burials here and ordered further burials to be made at Stavoren. This is a small city just north, with a harbour, more facilities and it had a German post. Therefore the sixth airman recovered here from the sea, Sgt. Luton (RAAF), was buried in Stavoren. He was the first of 7 interred airman in Stavoren. In total 12 airmen were recovered at this dike: the first 5 buried in Scharl, the next 7 airmen in Stavoren between Oct. 1942 and Oct. 1944. All twelve, except F/O Rowlands and Sgt. Luton, are from different bombers.





































































 Photo above. Back row, left to right:

- Sgt. T.C. Quinlan, Wellington R1800, 02/03 August 1941
- Sgt. A.T.P. Considine, Hampden AE421, 10/11 April 1942

Front row, right to left:

- "An Airman", no rank, RAAF (Australia), 09 July 1942 (wash ashore date)
-  F/O  R.G. Rowlands, RAAF, Lancaster I R5755, 04/05 September 1942
- "An Airman", no rank, RAF, 06 October 1942 (wash ashore date)
























































Photo below: View from the dike on Scharl. The central group of high trees is the cemetery.





















































Photo below: View from the cemetery gate towards Stavoren.
























































For photos of the sea here, the Red Cliff and Laaksum harbour we recommend this site: www.afanja.nl/lichtlijnig/tag/het-rode-klif




© ZZairwar (Zuyder Zee Air War)