Comana: Remembering Romanians’ respect

This is the time of year when we remember all those killed in the First and Second World Wars, and in the conflicts since.

Yesterday I visited Comana, a beautiful nature reserve and monastery not far from Bucharest. I was there with a large team from the Embassy and a number of our partners from the business community. At the Queen’s Birthday Party this year we undertook to plant a tree for every guest that attended, and so we went to Comana with our shovels to plant 600 trees in this protected nature reserve.

While I was there I heard an extraordinary story of what happened in Comana one night during the Second World War.

It was a Saturday night – the 6th of May 1944 – and a British Vickers Wellington bomber piloted by Warrant Officer Clarke was flying a mission to bomb targets in Bucharest. The plane came under fire from a German anti-aircraft battery, it was hit and plunged down into the marshes near Comana monastery. Warrant Officer Clarke and the four other young men in his crew were all killed – the navigator Sergeant Cox, the bomb aimer Sergeant Scott, the radio operator Sergeant Walker and the gunner Sergeant Vaughan.

The villagers in Comana saw the plane come down. Under cover of darkness they went out to the marsh and recovered the bodies of the five airmen from the wreckage of the plane. Then they took them back to village, washed them and buried them according to the Orthodox rite in the graveyard where Romanian heroes of the First World War were also buried. Years later the bodies were moved to the Commonwealth cemetery at Tancabesti, where we will hold our annual Service of Remembrance this Sunday. Parts of the plane were also recovered from the marsh, and sent back to the UK and to the military museum in Bucharest.

The villagers of Comana made a remarkable gesture, one that is not often found in the history of warfare. They would have known that these airmen were at war with their country, but they showed the same respect for our dead as they did for their own sons. I find that a very touching and truly inspiring tale, and I will remember their example and their respect for our common humanity as we pray for peace and justice at the Tancabesti cemetery this Sunday.