eGGSA Graves - Western Cape

Kommandant se Graf (Commander's grave) is an obelisk where commander Barend Mattys van Heerden fell after he was shot by fugitive Piet Matthyse. The incident had a tremendous impact on Soon van Wyk, who, despite the fact that he, not yet being the correspondent for "Die Burger", had his first report regarding the incident in 1946 reported on the front page of the newspaper. He was involved in the attempt to immortalise the incident. Soon van Wyk, with the help of Barend Streuders, later single handed erected the obelisk, in memory of Cpt. B.M. van Heerden at Soutkloof. Cpt. van Heerden’s wife, daughter and son were present during the unveiling of the obelisk. The inscription reads "Kommandant B.M. van Heerden. Hy het sy lewe hier gegee in die uitvoering van sy pligte op 30 Dec 1946" (Commander BM van Heerden. He gave up his life in the execution of his duties on 30 Dec 1946). Soon van Wyk painted the trellis work around the obelisk annually till his retirement. Piet Matthyse was a murder suspect who was being tracked by Cpt. B.M. van Heerden. He shot Cpt. van Heerden from a distance of approx. 100 meters. The place where Piet Matthyse was sitting when he fired the shot that killed Cpt. van Heerden has been piled with white painted rocks and is visible from Cpt. van Heerdens obelisk on the opposite side of the road. source: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC553Q5_kommandant-s-graf Cemetery information:- Album complete. eGGSA captions by: James Anderson The GGSA Cemetery DVD/ Cemetery Transcript Project only has information on the cemetery location. Cemetery ID: 6868 Google Earth Cemetery Initiative Information:- GPSID: 8245 GPS: -33 47.982, 21 28.248