Relation with Lake (class): Lake Area Cemetery (LAI)  
Total nr. of casualties buried here (TC): 10
Lake casualties, initially, end WW2 (LC-I): 0
Unknown today: 0
of which unknown from Lake (LC-U): 0
of which unknown from North Sea (NS-U): 0
Initial burial site in WW2: yes, Lake.
Post war burial site for collection and reburial from other sites: no.
Cemetery with Lake casualties today: no.


          
YPECOLSGA GENERAL CEMETERY

This is a very remote cemetery. We suspect this in one of the less visited Allied war grave locations in the Netherlands. It is on a quite road in the country, with only a few farms in the vicinity. The old church from year 1600 was demolished many years ago and the two bells are hanging in a wooden construction on the churchyard as a reminder of what once was. Two heavy bombers crashed here end 1942 and in May 1943. Eight men of a Stirling are buried here and 2 of a Lancaster.


    

Dutch name cemetery: Ypecolsga Alg. begr. pl.
CWGC name: Wymbritseradeel (IJpecolsga) General Cemetery
Address (usable for car navigation):
Ypecolsga road 10-19 (on the N928 road), between Balk & Woudsend, 2km south of Woudsend. 

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








 The first 2 men to be buried here were Sgt. Wilkinson and Sgt. Croal of Lancaster I, ED355, 44 Sqn, crashed here in the night of 17 on 18 December 1942. The aircraft dived into a canal named the Fokkesloot and drove deep into the soft ground, not recoverable during WW2. Only Wilkinson and Croal were found. The people here erected a monument for the crew at the crash location. which was a field grave at the time. But in the early 1950's, road work encountered the wreck and the remains of the five other crew members were found and buried in the British war and centralization cemetery Jonkerbos in Nijmegen. See our site page on Jonkerbos Cemetery for their grave position there. 







The May 1943 crew is of Stirling I, EF343, pilot F/O W. Davey, call sign OJ-B of the RAF 149 'East India' Squadron. Shot down here in the night 04/05 May 1943. In the flight before this one, a student pilot flew with this crew. This was Sgt. Jack Uden. Just before the fatal mission of EF343, he got his own aircraft which was Stirling III, BK710, OJ-A, also 149 Sqn. This aircraft and crew went missing 3 weeks later on 25/26 May 1943. The crash position was found in Lake IJsselmeer (Old Zuyder Sea) east of Marken in year 2010 and recovery-request is now pending, although most of the aircraft was recovered before in or just after the war but not identified as BK710. 






© ZZairwar (Zuyder Zee Air War).