A quiet visit to a family grave in Ibadan has uncovered a striking link to World War II, as renowned publisher Gbenro Adegbola reveals the story of a 22-year-old South African Air Force pilot who died in 1941 and now lies buried at St. Anne’s Church cemetery in Molete, just steps away from the resting place of late Justice Atinuke Ige.
Each time we visit my mother in law’s grave in Ibadan, I see the headstone of a South African Air Force officer in front of her’s.
Lt. Pieter de Jager Fritz, a 22-year-old pilot, died in 1941.
I know the Commonwealth keeps meticulous grave records, so I decided to research.
He died flying over Ibadan en-route Osogbo to refuel in 1941, thousands of miles from home.
He was flying the Takoradi (Ghana) Route to Egypt, a massive World War II allied “Air Bridge” to North Africa which was an active war front.
Flying over the Mediterranean was a no-no.
So, pilots had to fly fighter planes circuitously to Egypt.
The war allies would ship knocked down aircraft to Takoradi in Ghana and recouple them there.
They’d then be flown Takoradi-Lagos-Osogbo-Kano-Maiduguri-Khartoum, to Cairo.
One such ferry trips ended badly in Ibadan.
On May 7, 1941, Fritz and his comrade Lt. Dimmock flying their Tomahawks in large formation ran into a violent tropical storm near Ibadan. Their two planes crashed.
While they died in the same storm, they were buried in different parts of the city to honour their faiths.
Fritz in an Anglican CMS yard and Dimmock apparently at the Catholic Seminary in Oke Are.
The military cemetery in Jericho was probably not commissioned then.
Surprisingly information about Fritz death was quite easy to find.
Every time I visit my mother in law now, I’m reminded that our local churchyard in Ibadan is also a small part of global history.
Kudos to the Commonwealth Graves Commission who tend the 3 war graves in a church yard in Ibadan. Few years ago one had fallen. Now it’s re-erected.
Once you couldn’t read their letterings, now they’ve been re-engraved in granite, guaranteed to last at least 50 years.
A young man from a different world, and a different era, resting almost side by side our mother, somehow makes the “world” of World War II, feel very small.
Today makes it 23 years since our mother passed, the Honourable Justice Atinuke Omobonike Ige JCA, OFR.
She was a rare human indeed. She was truly obìnrin méta àt’àbò.
May all our dear ones gone ahead of us continue to rest in peace and rise gloriously at the resurrection.
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