Commonwealth war graves in Denmark

A guide for visitors and relatives.

Photograph: Robert Graham Cobley MBE, PoL. / Pexels

Text: Mariano Anthony Davies

In 2025, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) had registered 1,031 identified Commonwealth War Graves at 131 sites in churchyards and cemeteries throughout Denmark. Currently, there are a further 106 unknown Commonwealth War Graves commemorated on their headstone with the words of British poet, novelist and short-story writer Joseph Rudyard Kipling, “Known unto God”.

Over the years, CWGC’s five volunteers in Denmark (led by British citizen Robert Graham Cobley MBE, PoL – retired from the British Embassy Copenhagen and Honorary Representative in Denmark for the CWGC and founder of “the Danish Team” of volunteers) have researched and had confirmed the identities of twelve RAF airmen from World War Two, three Polish SOE Operatives, a Royal Navy seaman from the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and three Danes in British service. Also, “In from the cold”, a Danish Spitfire pilot and two SOE agents in the Danish Resistance of World War Two have been identified.

There is an anniversary for each grave, but these are not always marked by the occasional visit of descendants and relatives or others wishing to pay their respects, simply because in many cases, there are none left to mourn those young men, who sadly died before they could establish a family. A case in point is the CWGC Svinø site, where a family travels from New Zealand every year to pay homage to their relative.

So, perhaps this article will spark a new and humbling interest or supplement an existing respectful explorative Commonwealth War Graves expedition.

For example, it is a fact that “Commonwealth” includes the sons of 23 nations who are buried in Denmark, including airmen from Switzerland, Argentina, Norway, and nations that no longer exist by that name, such as British Guyana, Newfoundland, and Southern Rhodesia.

All casualties were initially or eventually buried in consecrated earth, bar one – the so-called “Isolated Graves” of Tarm in Jutland. Irreverently buried by the occupying forces in World War Two, these graves were discovered post-war, and the site was ceremonially blessed.

The white headstones, made from late Jurassic Portland Limestone, are supplemented in Denmark by the harder-wearing and geologically much older Ordovician limestone from Øland, Sweden. Sandstone comes from Bornholm, grey granite from Scotland, plus Italian Botticino marble, and glacial granite boulders, available in polished condition or as smooth field boulders engraved with details.

When visiting, look for unusual inscriptions. For example, “General List” on a headstone refers not to a person’s rank but that he was a member of the secretive MI9 (you may have seen the fictional Miss Pierce of MI9, co-starring in “Foyle's War”).

At the base of the headstone, all the inscriptions are quite moving. There is one headstone inscription in Welsh and even one in Hindi. The New Zealand headstones, thirty-two of them, all airmen, are marked with “New Zealand” and a Fern, but uniquely, they are also all without an inscription.

Crews of bomber aircraft normally comprised four to eight airmen, and in one instance, ten airmen. It is a myth that the captain of the aircraft was buried in the middle of his crew when buried together as a crew. It is CWGC’s tenet that all in their care should be commemorated as equals. For example, Prince Maurice of Battenberg, a grandson of Queen Victoria, lies at peace in a simple grave, without pomp, in Ypres Town Cemetery (Belgium).

You can usually see a religious symbol at a CWGC grave, but not always, and there is usually a Regimental Badge. The headstone design can vary, from the familiar rounded cap to the pointed Polish stones, MoD shouldered headstones, and several Russian headstones of two designs are in CWGC plots.

Look for the green background and white lettered Commonwealth War Graves enamelled sign at the Cemetery entrance or in the CWGC plot. Nearly all CWGC’s sites are marked on Google Maps.

I hope that this brief introduction will serve to inform and instruct about the wealth of interest in Commonwealth War Graves, also in Denmark. You may wish to take the family and pass the torch to the next generation.

These were brave service people in Denmark, who arrived before we did and who will remain undisturbed to be respected, honoured and remembered for the gift of freedom that they gave so willingly to us.

They will be here, respected, honoured and remembered in posterity even after we are gone. Borrowed from a line in a well-known poem written in the 19th century, the phrase 'lest we forget' means 'it should not be forgotten'.

We say or write 'lest we forget' in commemorations to remember constantly the service and sacrifice of people who have served in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations with these words from Rudyard Kipling’s 1897 poem ‘Recessional’.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn; At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.