Identity
Person No.
31784
Old ROH no.
2151
Service No.
P1/40172
Last Name
First Name
John
Initials
J
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
27
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 #383. Capt Nortje and Lt J. Moir were briefed to conduct a bomb line patrol. Arriving over Chorwon at 10000 feet, they flew between Chorwon and Kumwa, to a position just north of the Hwachon reservoir. Here they spotted a light aircraft, which they approached. Capt Nortje identified it as a L-19 of the Republic of Korea Air Force. They then sighted another unidentified aircraft, which turned out to be a US Navy spotter aircraft. Lt Moir turned onto the tail of another aircraft, in an attempt to identify this. It was in fact a US Navy Skyraider, and unfortunately the other members of the Skyraider's flight, unable to identify him clearly as friendly, assumed his intentions to be hostile and Lt Moir was attacked and shot down by another of the Skyraiders
Military Service
Branch
Air Force
Rank
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
Alternative Commemoration until grave found
Unit History
Part of
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
Capt Nortje and Lt J. Moir were briefed to conduct a bomb line patrol. Arriving over Chorwon at 10000 feet, they flew between Chorwon and Kumwa, to a position just north of the Hwachon reservoir. Here they spotted a light aircraft, which they approached. Capt Nortje identified it as a L-19 of the Republic of Korea Air Force. They then sighted another unidentified aircraft, which turned out to be a US Navy spotter aircraft. Lt Moir turned onto the tail of another aircraft, in an attempt to identify this. It was in fact a US Navy Skyraider, and unfortunately the other members of the Skyraider's flight, unable to identify him clearly as friendly, assumed his intentions to be hostile and Lt Moir was attacked and shot down by another of the Skyraiders.
Dedications
No dedications have been added yet.