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Bowden , Rowan Rex (R R)

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Identity
Person No.
29563
Service No.
Unknown
Last Name
First Name
Rowan Rex
Initials
R R
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
26
Death Record
Cause code
AA 1,737
Aircraft accident
Cause of Death
Died in Aircraft Accident, wing came off during roll recovery and crashed next to Louis Botha Airfield in Durban, in AT-6 Harvard #7040
Military Service
Branch
Air Force
Rank
Lieutenant
Unit
Unknown
Secondary Unit
Army
Defence Force
SADF 3,817
South African Defence Force
Memorial
Memorial
Location
On a koppie at the Voortrekker Monument, overlooking Pretoria
Address
Coordinates
Panel
On the panel
Position on the panel will be added with photographs
Notes

Next of kin, lived at Lothian Court, 10th Ave, Durban. ref. 85 years of SAAF.

Research notes


5 Sep 2026: Unit "5 Squadron" (a squadron, SAAF's regiment-equivalent) promoted to Regiment, per John's decision. Corps (South African Air Force) unchanged.
16 Sep 2026, ServiceNo contamination sweep: the stored ServiceNo 'P21480' was CLEARED. It was not a reading of this man's record. PersonNumbers 29562 to 29563 -- 2 consecutive records -- all carried the identical number, which belongs to the record at the head of that run (29562, Bouwer, Jeremias Jesaias (J J)). A value repeated down an unbroken block of PersonNumbers is a forward-fill import artefact, not men who shared a service number; the pattern holds across 850 such runs on this roll and is independently confirmed by Mike Sandham's research log, which attaches such numbers to the head of the run 167 times against 6 contradictions (all examined). No replacement is guessed: this man's real service number is simply not known, and a blank field says so honestly where another man's number did not.

Citations
Unknown
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