Identity
Person No.
29542
Old ROH no.
2152
Service No.
P1/40815
Last Name
First Name
Michael Coenraad
Initials
M C
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
24
Death Record
Date of Death
Cause code
KIA 14,780
Killed in action
Cause of Death
Killed in action, in North American F-86 F-30 Sabre #614. Major S. Wells led four Sabres on a naval affiliation exercise with HMS Ocean, off the west coast opposite K-55. After pulling out from his mock attack, 2Lt M.C. Botha reported that both his alternate and emergency system controls were locked, and the pressure on his alternate system gauge was reading zero. Major Wells advised him to watch his normal system and to head for the coast and bale out if necessary. 2Lt Botha ejected over land at 18,000 feet, but was then blown out to sea, his parachute being seen approximately two miles offshore. He was never found, despite an intensive search conducted over two days, and is believed to have drowned or been overcome by the mud in the shallow water close to shore
Military Service
Branch
Air Force
Rank
Second Lieutenant
Regiment
Unit
Unknown
Defence Force
UDF 24,808
Union Defence Force
Location
Country
Locality
Unknown
Cemetery
Grave Reference
Memorial
Memorial
Location
Tanggok, Nam District, Busan, South Korea
Address
Coordinates
Panel
On the panel
Panel 13
Unit History
Notes
ref. 85 years of SAAF
Research notes
Locality was wrongly set to "Gauteng" -- corrected 28 Aug 2026 (second pass, this time verified against Cemetery rather than AddInfo text, after the first AddInfo-based pass was found to be unreliable and reverted). This person's own Cemetery is unambiguously outside South Africa; several other people at the same cemetery already correctly show a blank Locality. Cleared rather than guessed at a specific region.
5 Sep 2026: Unit "2 Squadron" (a squadron, SAAF's regiment-equivalent) promoted to Regiment, per John's decision. Corps (South African Air Force) unchanged.
Citations
Unknown
External References
- South African War Graves Project open source ↗
-
United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Korea
open source ↗
United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Korea (UNMCK), Busan — South African Korean War dead.
Stories 1
Major S. Wells led four Sabres on a naval affiliation exercise with HMS Ocean, off the west coast opposite K-55. After pulling out from his mock attack, 2Lt M.C. Botha reported that both his alternate and emergency system controls were locked, and the pressure on his alternate system gauge was reading zero. Major Wells advised him to watch his normal system and to head for the coast and bale out if necessary. 2Lt Botha ejected over land at 18,000 feet, but was then blown out to sea, his parachute being seen approximately two miles offshore. He was never found, despite an intensive search conducted over two days, and is believed to have drowned or been overcome by the mud in the shallow water close to shore.
Dedications
No dedications have been added yet.