In the Polish grave in the "Vestre Gravlund" cemetery were buried, among others, the crew of the bomber "Halifax" Mk. II, No. W773, on board which there were 7 airmen from No. 138 Special Squadron RAF (Lt. Airman Mariusz Wodzicki, Lt. r/op. Pvt. Franciszek Pantkowski, PFC Franciszek Sobkowiak, PFC Franciszek Zaremba, Sgt. Tadeusz Madejski, Sgt. Wacław Żuk and mech. platoon leader Czesław Kozłowski) and 3 'cichociemni' (Lt. Jerzy Bichniewicz a.k.a. 'Błękitny', Lt. Stanisław Hencel a.k.a. 'Pik', Lt. Wiesław Szpakowicz a.k.a. 'Pak'). After an unsuccessful airdrop over Poland, they returned to their base in Great Britain and on their way were shot down on the night of 29-30.10.1942 by German anti-aircraft artillery in the area of the village of Helleren near Egersund. As the German military authorities did not allow burial in a cemetery, the bodies were buried in the wilderness in an unmarked place on the Brusand seashore near the village of Ogna. In the spring of 1945, it was possible to locate this makeshift burial and move the remains of the fallen to the church grounds in Egersund, where they rested until 1953, when they were again exhumed and moved to a mass grave at Vestre Gravlund Cemetery in Oslo. During the Second World War, approximately 7100 Poles brought in by the Todt organisation and about 1,800 prisoners of war brought by the Germans from the German Reich in the spring of 1942 were employed in the Norwegian area, working on the construction of fortifications, bunkers, submarine bases and other military infrastructure. Some of them died or were shot dead by the occupying forces. During the commemoration of Polish graves carried out by the Norwegians in autumn 1954, the found burials of deceased prisoners of war and forced labourers of Polish nationality were exhumed from various places in Norway and transferred to a mass grave in the Oslo cemetery, as well as in Moholt (Trondheim district) and Hakvik. The gravesite in Oslo was designed in 1957 by sculptor Gunnar Janson, the cost of construction was borne by the Norwegian state. In 2008, on the initiative of the Polish Embassy in Oslo, the inscriptions were gilded and the tombstone restored. Later, an eagle with a crown and a stone cross were placed on the monument, and the name plates were replaced.
In the autumn of 2022, the restoration of the plaques was carried out, together with the improvement of the legibility of the inscriptions. The work was subsidised by the Institute of National Remembrance. At the same time, the name of Cpl. Czeslaw Szafran, a prisoner of war who died as a result of an execution carried out by the Sicherheitspolizei on the island of Bragdøya on 21.08.1944, was added. Cpl. Czeslaw Szafran is buried in a mass grave of Soviet POWs buried in 1945, which is located adjacent to the Polish grave. It is not possible to identify his remains at present, as the bodies of all the POWs have been cremated. We owe the identification of his burial place to the research work carried out by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture.