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Introduction
to Wellshill Cemetery
According to the Register of the Commonwealth
War Graves Commission for the County of Perthshire it was in September 1940
when the Polish authorities expressed a wish for a special consecrated plot
in a cemetery for the burial of members of their forces. As there was a
substantial number of Polish troops in the area, Wellshill Cemetery was
selected as one of the burial grounds. The local authorities set aside a
special section in the Jeanfield Road entrance for war graves and at the
southern end of this section is the large Polish plot.
Location of Wellshill Cemetery
Perth is situated on the River Tay
and can be reached from Glasgow via the A9 or from Edinburgh via the M90.
Direction signs in Polish
indicating the site of the Polish war graves have been erected.
The entrance is off Jeanfield
Road.
Numbers
of casualties
An analysis by the Commission of
this cemetery states that there are 354 Polish war graves made up of 339
Army, 4 Navy, 9 Air Force and 2 miscellaneous - 1 Polish nurse and 1
civilian.
Excluded from the Polish
casualties are 26 members of the Polish Resettlement Corps (PRC) who are
included in the British statistics and Lt-Col G K Langer also of the PRC who
died on 30th March 1948. (The CWGC regard deaths after 31st December 1947 as
non-War casualties).
Thus Wellshill cemetery contains
381 Polish graves - 50% of the war burials in Scotland.
In 2011 the remains of Lt Col G K
Langer were repatriated to Poland.
The earliest war casualty in the
cemetery is that of pchor (Officer Cadet) Ulrych-Uleński who died on
18th November 1940 and the last known, until his remains were returned to
Poland, Lieutenant-Colonel Langer.
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