Identity
Person No.
30945
Old ROH no.
2136
Service No.
P1/40843
Last Name
First Name
Harold Theodore Retief
Initials
H T R
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
24
Death Record
Date of Death
Cause code
KIA 14,781
Killed in action
Cause of Death
Killed in action, in North American F-51 Mustang #340. 2Lt Joyce was flying as No.2 to Lt Pretorius, on a rail interdiction mission. About 20 miles north of the bomb line the No.3, Lt Beamish, reported that he had a coolant leak and he and the No.4 Mustang were ordered to return to their base at K-46. Not long after this, Joyce reported that his engine was smoking, and Lt Pretorius decided to also return to K-46. While en route, 2Lt Joyce reported that his engine was now alright, and Lt Pretorius decided that the two of them would bomb Inchon instead, as this was directly on their route home. He ordered 2Lt Joyce to arm his bombs, which instructions were acknowledged, and they went in for the attack. After Lt Pretorius had climbed away he observed a brilliant flash on a hillside south of Inchon, and despite repeated attempts he was unable to raise 2Lt Joyce on his radio. He concluded that 2Lt Joyce had flown into the hillside while making his attack. Lt Pretorius returned later that day with another flight of aircraft, but although they were able to find the crash site, there was no sign of 2Lt Joyce
Military Service
Branch
Air Force
Rank
Second Lieutenant
Regiment
Unit
Unknown
Secondary Unit
Army
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
Part of
Notes
Son of Major H. V. Joyce, of Voortrekkerhoogte. 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
2Lt Joyce was flying as No.2 to Lt Pretorius, on a rail interdiction mission. About 20 miles north of the bomb line the No.3, Lt Beamish, reported that he had a coolant leak and he and the No.4 Mustang were ordered to return to their base at K-46. Not long after this, Joyce reported that his engine was smoking, and Lt Pretorius decided to also return to K-46. While en route, 2Lt Joyce reported that his engine was now alright, and Lt Pretorius decided that the two of them would bomb Inchon instead, as this was directly on their route home. He ordered 2Lt Joyce to arm his bombs, which instructions were acknowledged, and they went in for the attack. After Lt Pretorius had climbed away he observed a brilliant flash on a hillside south of Inchon, and despite repeated attempts he was unable to raise 2Lt Joyce on his radio. He concluded that 2Lt Joyce had flown into the hillside while making his attack. Lt Pretorius returned later that day with another flight of aircraft, but although they were able to find the crash site, there was no sign of 2Lt Joyce.
Dedications
No dedications have been added yet.