Identity
Person No.
32423
Old ROH no.
2137
Service No.
P1/40174
Last Name
First Name
Critton John
Initials
C J
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
26
Death Record
Date of Death
Cause code
KIA 14,780
Killed in action
Cause of Death
Killed in action, in North American F-51 Mustang #363. A flight of four Mustangs, led by Lt Pretorius, conducted a rail interdiction mission in the YD area. After attacking their primary target successfully, they proceeded to a village north-east of Sibyon-ni, which they attacked with rockets. While pulling out of his dive, 2Lt C.J. Pappas' aircraft was seen to explode in a silvery flash, although there was only light 20 mm flak in the vicinity. Further investigation revealed no sign of 2Lt Pappas or his aircraft. It was his first mission
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
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 2
A flight of four Mustangs, led by Lt Pretorius, conducted a rail interdiction mission in the YD area. After attacking their primary target successfully, they proceeded to a village north-east of Sibyon-ni, which they attacked with rockets. While pulling out of his dive, 2Lt C.J. Pappas' aircraft was seen to explode in a silvery flash, although there was only light 20 mm flak in the vicinity. Further investigation revealed no sign of 2Lt Pappas or his aircraft. It was his first mission.
Hi John. From here - United States (or Google Critton John Pappas). Critton was awarded the following: South African Korea 1950-1953 (2/Lt CJ. Pappas); U.N. Korea 1950-1954 (2Lt C.J. Pappas). both with officially impressed naming, in their original named card boxes of issue, together with U.S.A. Divisional Citation Badge, extremely fine (3). ?2000-2500. ( The medals are pictured). His photograph appears on http://www.cieldegloire.com/sq_saaf_002.php Scroll down and click on his name. Regards, Brian Goodwin.
Dedications
No dedications have been added yet.