THE Vale of Porlock echoed with the sounds of ‘Lili Marlene’ and ‘The Last Post’ as a moving graveside ceremony was held in Hawkcombe Cemetery on Thursday, August 13, for the rededication of the burial of a young airman killed in World War Two.

Wilhelm Reuhl was only 20 years old when his Junkers 88 aircraft was shot down over Porlock Bay on a Luftwaffe mission in 1940.

He was buried with full military honours in the village cemetery and villagers have tended his resting place in the intervening 86 years, laying flowers on the grave and reading out his name at Remembrance events.

However, the burial plot will now be cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), which together with its German equivalent the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK), arranged the rededication.

A headstone commissioned by the VDK was installed in place of a simple wooden cross which had marked Reuhl’s burial plot.

It was the first of 327 graves of Germans killed in both world wars and buried in the UK which will now be inspected, marked, and maintained by the CWGC in partnership with the VDK.

Nearly 5,000 other Germans were reinterred in the Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery, in Staffordshire, but Reuhl’s family were so touched by the care shown by villagers that they wanted him to remain in Porlock.

Patricia Hammond in Porlock's St Dubricius Church sang in both English and German the hymn ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’ as part of a rededication service for a wartime fallen German airman. PHOTO: George Ody.
Patricia Hammond in Porlock's St Dubricius Church sang in both English and German the hymn ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’ as part of a rededication service for a wartime fallen German airman. PHOTO: George Ody. (George Ody)

British and German military personnel, church ministers, and dignitaries took part side by side in the rededication along with representatives of Porlock Parish Council and the village.

Porlock’s rector, the Rev Ann Gibbs, aided by German Pastor Kai Thierbach, presided over a service in St Dubricius Church before the honour party walked to the cemetety.

It began with a minute’s silence, followed by wreath laying in the church at the foot of Porlock's war dead roll of honour by CWGC global strategy director Charles Garrett, VDK secretary general and Dirk Backen, and representatives of Germany’s Armed Forces from the German Embassy in London.

The Rector of Porlock, the Rev Ann Gibbs, leads a graveside rededication service in Hawkcombe Cemetery for a German airman killed in World War Two PHOTO: George Ody.
The Rector of Porlock, the Rev Ann Gibbs, leads a graveside rededication service in Hawkcombe Cemetery for a German airman killed in World War Two. PHOTO: George Ody. (George Ody)

The service was conducted in English and German and singer Patricia Hammond sang the hymn ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty’ in both languages.

Ms Hammond also performed the popular wartime song ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

Mr Garrett spoke of his pride at how Porlock villagers’ response to the wartime air crash had brought two former enemies together in an act of reconciliation.

Herr Backen said the Porlock commemoration was the first in a new joint project with the CWGC to recognise Germans buried in the UK in unattended graves or with no formal headstone.

A Porlock graveside rendition in English and German by Patricia Hammond of ‘Lili Marlene’.

In the cemetery, the VDK laid flowers on the four British war graves it also holds, and a wreath was laid by the parish council.

Buglers of the Salamanca Band and Bugles of The Rifles sounded ‘The Last Post’ and performed ‘Der gute Kamerad’ (‘The Good Comrade’), a traditional German soldiers’ lament.

Ms Hammond then sang ‘Lili Marlene’, a German love song which became popular with both German and British soldiers during the war.