First Air Raid of WWII – 46

Funerals

The first of the funerals for the dead took place on the morning of Friday 20 October, when six Royal Navy casualties were buried with full military honours at Douglas Bank Cemetery near Rosyth.

The youngest was 18-year-old Ordinary Seaman Bernard Roebuck who had been serving on board HMS Mohawk.

The bodies of Pohle’s crew members, Kurt Seydel and August Schleicher, which had been recovered from the wreckage of the Junkers in the sea off Crail, were taken to St Philip’s Church. Portobello on 19 October where they remained overnight under police guard, each coffin draped in the Reichskriegflagge. On the 20th the two coffins were removed from the church and placed on an RAF trailer for the short journey to Portobello Cemetery, escorted by 60 officers and airmen from 602 and 603 Squadrons.

The funeral cortege moved sedately down Brunstane Road and Milton Road to the cemetery (a house in Brunstane Road still bears the ‘spang’ marks from .303 rounds fired from one of the Spitfires) and vintage film of this part of proceedings exists. Thousands lined the route. Sergeant ‘Angy’ Gillies was put in charge of the funeral party and prior to the occasion he had been carefully coached by a regular warrant officer in the direction and marching of the funeral party and of the ceremony itself.

Dignitaries at the funeral service included the Lord Provost Steele, Regional Commissioner Tom Johnston, AOC 13 Group. Fighter Command, AVM Richard Saul, and officers and airmen from both Scottish auxiliary squadrons, although the majority of pilots and ground crews from both squadrons were at a state of readiness and did not attend. The service was conducted by S/L Rossie Brown and a firing party of ten fired a volley over the graves following which the 603 pipe band played Over the Sea to Skye.  

F/0 Robin Waterston was on leave and numbered amongst the service representation at the funeral. On returning home he told his younger sister Jean that the Germans had been given a splendid send-off and hoped he would be given the same in the event of his own death. Sadly, when the end came for the extremely likeable young Scotsman, his send-off could not have been further removed from the event he had witnessed in Portobello.

19 October 1939, the funeral cortege of the bodies of  Unteroffizier Kurt Seydel and Gefreiter A Schleicher.
603 pipe band and Squadron members formed the funeral and firing party.

In 1959 the bodies of Gefreiter Schleicher and Unteroffizier Seydel were moved to the German Soldatenfriedhof [war cemetery] at Cannock Chase, Block 3, graves 477 and 478 respectively.

Years later the 603 padre revealed that, unbeknown to anyone, he had felt compelled to write to the bereaved families of the German dead via the International Red Cross. In his letters he informed them that their sons had received a proper Christian burial and that he regretted the loss of life so soon after war had been declared.