Svinø Mindelund

Svinø Mindelund is a memorial grove and war cemetery immediately north of Svinø Church on the Svinø peninsula south of Næstved. During the Second World War, the German occupying forces designated Svinø as one of five central burial sites in Denmark for Allied airmen who crashed over southern Zealand, Møn and Lolland-Falster and the surrounding waters — probably due to its proximity to the flight school at Avnø Air Base. In total, 108 Allied airmen were laid to rest here: 62 from Britain and Commonwealth countries and 46 Americans. The American airmen were exhumed in 1948–49 and either reburied at a military cemetery in Belgium or repatriated to the United States. The memorial grove was inaugurated in 1950 on the fifth anniversary of Denmark's liberation and is today maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Every 4 May in the evening a commemorative ceremony is held at the graves with a church service, speeches, wreath-laying and a ceremonial flypast — one of the country's largest events of its kind.